I enjoy Bill Lawrence’s TV shows, so I’ve been looking forward to seeing Apple TV’s Bad Monkey, starring Vince Vaughn. On an impulse, though, I decided to read the novel first, figuring that I would never read the book if I’d already seen the show. I’ve heard good things about Hiaasen for years, and as an Elmore Leonard fan I figured he was right up my alley.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. Bad Monkey did remind me of Elmore Leonard, but only because it seemed like such a poor imitation, almost as if you took Leonard and made me really insecure over whether the reader would understand that he was trying to be funny.
Bad Monkey centers on Andrew Yancy, an ex-cop with an independent streak and a history of poor decision-making. Bounced from the Miami PD for going rogue trying to stop a corrupt fellow officer, he has more recently been bounced from his job in Monroe County, Florida for assaulting his girlfriend’s husband, a prominent local doctor.
Quite improbably, he is then asked for a favor by the sheriff. An arm has been caught by a tourist out fishing, and the sheriff wants it taken to Miami and deposited there. Yancy fails to convince Dade County to take the case, and eventually winds up storing the arm in question in his freezer, because that’s a likely thing for an unconventional cop to do.
Despite being demoted all the way to health inspector (a recurring bit about him losing weight because he can’t stomach the thought of eating at restaurants get stale pretty quick) Yancy continues to work on the case of the lost limb. Eventually, the arm is claimed and buried by the grieving widow, but Yancy has suspicions, especially after the dead man’s estranged daughter accuses her stepmother of killing him for the money.
The plot spools out from there, eventually encompassing a medicare fraud conspiracy involving phony mobility scooters, a prospective resort community being built in the Bahamas, and the titular irascible simian, a supposed former movie star wreaking havoc wherever he goes. There’s also some stuff about “woodoo” that hasn’t aged well and to be honest probably didn’t look that great when the book came out in 2013.
Hiaasen, who can’t be accused of being too focused, also makes inordinate time for rather silly side plots. Yancy’s married girlfriend turns out to be a fugitive schoolteacher, still wanted in Oklahoma for seducing one of her AP English students. After Yancy dumps her, she looks her former teenaged lover up and brings him down to the Keys. There’s also the running war between Yancy and the real-estate speculator building a monstrosity next door. Yancy’s immature antics to stop the sale are, I suppose, meant to make him seem cool.
There’s a lot going on here, but there isn’t really much of a mystery, if that’s what you’re looking for. There’s one unexpected twist whose impact was unfortunately blunted by the poor pacing and bloated plot. I had to really push myself to get through this one, and now I’m not sure if I’ll even bother with the TV show.