Strip Tease (1993)

Strip Tease is a 1993 novel by Carl Hiaasen. Like most of his other novels, it is a crime novel set in Florida and features Hiaasen's characteristic black humor. The novel focuses on a single mother who has turned to exotic dancing to earn enough money to gain legal custody of her young daughter, and ends up matching wits with a lecherous United States Congressman and his powerful corporate backers.

Like many Hiaasen novels, the book's plot is set against a backdrop of a particular environmental crime or corruption issue that angers the author. In this case, it is the plutocracy of sugar growers in Florida, and the exorbitant subsidies regularly granted to them by the U.S. Congress.

Strip Tease was a New York Times bestseller in 1993.

Plot

During a late-night bachelor party at the Eager Beaver, a strip club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, drunken groom-to-be Paul Guber climbs on stage and grabs Erin Grant, one of the dancers. Before the club's bouncer can act, Paul is attacked with a champagne bottle by another customer. The attacker turns out to be Congressman David Lane Dilbeck, an incorrigible (yet secret) patron of adult establishments. Political fixer Malcolm Moldowsky, representing Dilbeck's legislative patrons in Florida's sugarcane industry, is furious at Dilbeck's stupidity since he is in the middle of a tough re-election campaign.

Erin, a single mother engaged in a custody fight with her ex-husband Darrell, was fired from her job as a secretary for the FBI after he was arrested for grand larceny. The legal costs of her divorce impelled a desperate Erin to take up exotic dancing as a career. Ironically, Erin's new occupation has given the judge a prejudiced view of her, while Darrell's criminal record has been expunged due to his work as an informant for the police. As a result, Darrell has been given custody of their daughter Angela, and Erin desperately needs even more money to reverse the court decision.

One of Erin's lovestruck fans, a bookish man named Jerry Killian, recognizes Dilbeck from the club and tries to blackmail him into influencing the judge in Erin's favor. But when the judge proves resistant to Dilbeck's probing, Moldowsky arranges for Jerry's murder so as to avoid attracting any more negative attention to his client. The body is found floating in a river in Montana by Miami homicide detective Al Garcia, on vacation with his family.

Another blackmailer surfaces in the person of Mordecai, a sleazy lawyer related to Paul's fiancée. One of Paul's friends from the bachelor party inadvertently snapped a picture of Dilbeck during the attack; Mordecai uses it to demand hush money. Instead, Mordecai and Paul's greedy fiancée are likewise murdered on Moldowsky's orders. However, Dilbeck's memory of Erin is indirectly sparked by the photo, and he obsessively refuses to continue with his campaign until he can "possess" her. Moldowsky, conscious that Dilbeck is necessary to his employers' continued prosperity, agrees to help.

Garcia returns to Florida and compares notes with Erin and her close friend, the club's bouncer Shad. He discovers evidence linking Jerry's murder to Moldowsky, but nothing that will stand up in court. At the same time, Darrell is again busted for larceny and his previous criminal history is revealed, tipping the custody dispute in Erin's favor. Deciding not to wait, she snatches Angela from her aunt's house while Darrell is away. Meanwhile, Moldowsky approaches Erin's boss and asks for her to give Dilbeck a private performance. Erin agrees, knowing that it is the best way of gathering evidence.

During her first private show, Dilbeck is rendered nearly helpless with lust, and Erin finds it easy to manipulate him. He offers her more money for a repeat performance, and she agrees. Realizing Dilbeck will probably escape implication in the murder under normal circumstances, Erin comes up with a plan to "destroy" him. On the night of the second show, Darrell follows Erin to the meeting place and comes upon Moldowsky watch-dogging the show, beating him to death in a drug-induced rage. Inside, Dilbeck tries to seduce Erin, and is vexed when she is unimpressed. Darrell enters and demands to be taken to his daughter. Erin moves to the next phase of her plan, drawing a pistol and ordering them both out.

With the help of Dilbeck's driver, Erin drives the two men to a sugarcane field owned by Dilbeck's supporters. When the car stops, Darrell flees for his life but then passes out; he is subsequently ground up along with the cane the next morning by a milling machine. Erin offers to slow-dance with Dilbeck in the cane field. Dilbeck believes the dance is a prelude to "wild cowboy sex," but when he realizes it is not, he tries to rape Erin–at which point he is seized by a squad of FBI agents, led by Erin's old boss, who received an anonymous call saying she had been abducted. Erin gives Dilbeck an ultimatum: in exchange for avoiding arrest and exposure, he has to resign his office.

With Darrell dead and the threat to her from Dilbeck and his patrons removed, Erin leaves the club and starts a new life with Angela. In the epilogue, it is revealed that she has got back her old job as well as a side-hustle dancing in the Main Street Parade at Walt Disney World and is currently applying to become an FBI agent herself.

Critical reception

Times reviewer Donald E. Westlake described Hiaasen's style as "a cross between Dave Barry and Elmore Leonard." In a positive review of the novel, Westlake claims that this is Hiaasen's strongest novel to date, writing:

In among his freaks and obsessives ... the author has dropped a real honest-to-God human being, an appealing young woman named Erin Grant. Her presence ... makes the cartoon nastiness around her less cartoony and more nasty than in previous Hiaasen novels.

Connections with Hiaasen's other works

Al Garcia, who has appeared in Tourist Season, Double Whammy, and Skin Tight, makes his fourth, and (to date) last appearance in Hiaasen's novels.