Thanks to Knopf for a review copy of Carl Hiaasen's latest – Star Island. Not usually the sort of book I read, but I should read more genre fiction, and this would qualify.

First paragraph:

"On the fifteenth of March, two hours before sunrise, an emergency medical technician named Jimmy Campo found a sweaty stranger huddled in the back of his ambulance. It was parked in a service alley behind the Stefano Hotel, where Jimmy Campo and his partner had been summoned to treat a twenty-two-year-old white female who had swallowed an unwise mix of vodka, Red Bull, hydrocodone, birdseed and stool softener – in all respects a routine South Beach 911 call, until now."

The back jacket cover review that most makes me feel like vomiting:

"A whole lot Survivor, a little bit of The Tempest, with a pinch of Laurel and Hardy … Hiassen's ear is pitch-perfect." – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Haven't read it, and I don't know about you, but that garish cover immediately whispered to me, "Seventeenth-century dramatic genius…"

I don't usually mention review copies of genre novels I receive, I guess because they're often so opposite of my reading tastes I can't be bothered. Now that my desk is getting swamped with them I thought maybe I should be a little more, ahem, open-minded and try some  – at least applying the 50-page rule.*

Expansion of the mind. It's a thought.

Sounds like a bumper sticker, doesn't it?

* The 50-page rule states as follows:

"After having read at least the first 50 pages of any book one may feel free to either:

a). continue reading

b). employ skimming technique/ fast-forward to the end

c). donate book to library

d). rip out the pages and use for origami projects

e). stalk the author and beat him about the head with his own creation."

From "Stuff Readers Can Do" by Lisa Guidarini, 2010.