Michael Dirda

SKINNY DIP

By Carl Hiaasen. Knopf. 355 pp. $24.95

Let me start with a confession: This is the first Carl Hiaasen novel that I've read, and so longtime admirers of his work should kindly forgive any oversights in what follows. Rest assured, though, that what does follow will be largely a rave. Normally, I would have tried to dig out one or two earlier Hiaasens before this one (Stormy Weather, Strip Tease, Skin Tight, etc.), but I was far from home and my usual resources: I started the book one evening while staying in a cottage surrounded by estuaries and reclaimed marshland. New Smyrna Beach, Fla., seemed the right place to read Carl Hiaasen, unless I were to drive four hours south on I-95 to Miami. I liked sitting in the gathering dark, a ceiling fan softly rotating overhead, surrounded by scrub oak and palmetto, with the passion fruit starting to ripen and the insects flittering and buzzing outside, as that evening sun went down.

I mention all this because several characters in Hiaasen's book -- the Travis McGee-like hero, Mick Stranahan; the crazed, one-eyed swamp hermit, the Captain; and a couple of others -- have appeared in previous novels. I would like to have known more about their earlier lives, but Hiaasen makes sure that his new story works perfectly well without such knowledge. Still, I'm sure that fans will derive an extra fillip of pleasure in recognizing old friends.

While on a cruise to celebrate their second wedding anniversary, Joey Perrone is pushed overboard one night by her husband, Chaz. "The impact tore off her silk skirt, blouse, panties, wristwatch and sandals, but Joey remained conscious and alert. Of course she did. She had been co-captain of her college swim team, a biographical nugget that her husband obviously had forgotten."

Once Joey surfaces, she starts swimming toward the distant lights of the Florida coast, but after some hours the young woman begins to tire -- Chaz had made her drink a lot of Merlot before the "accident" -- and then . . . "She had momentarily forgotten about the sharks, when something heavy and rough-skinned butted against her left breast. Thrashing and grunting, she beat at the thing with both fists until the last of her strength was gone."

Meanwhile, Chaz Perrone is telling the world how terrible he feels about Joey's disappearance -- it couldn't be suicide, could it? -- and secretly calling up his girlfriend, Ricca, and generally trying to disguise how much he is a cheat and a maggot. But cop Karl Rolvaag, in true Columbo fashion, feels that something isn't quite right here. Chaz is a marine biologist, a wetlands scientist testing for chemical pollution in the Everglades, and yet he doesn't appear to know the direction that the Gulf Stream flows, blithely allows his tropical fish to starve and even mixes his recyclables with the regular garbage. Rolvaag starts to dig into the case.

Joey survives, and her rescuer is none other than Mick Stranahan, 53, former cop, lean, easygoing, six times married (five times to waitresses), living alone on an island with his Doberman, a skiff, some books and a lot of fishing equipment. Shall we just say that he is every woman's dream? Joey, we learn, is 37, blonde, tomboyish, sexy and low-maintenance. In other words, every middle-aged man's fantasy. And she's rich, too. One of the pleasures of Skinny Dip lies in waiting for these two likable people to hook up, even if there is little doubt about it happening.

" 'Mick, I want to pay you for your help. Plus expenses, of course, including room and board.'

" 'I still can't promise I won't try to sleep with you,' he said. 'That's how I often behave when I meet someone attractive. It's only fair that you should know.'

" 'I appreciate the honesty. I do.'

" 'Don't worry, you'll see me coming about a mile away. I'm not real slick.'

" 'No?'

" 'French wine, moonlight and Neil Young, strictly acoustic.' "