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    Lucky You: A Novel
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    Lucky You: A Novel
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    Lucky You: A Novel
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    Lucky You: A Novel

    Written by Carl Hiaasen

    Narrated by Edward Asner

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Grange, Florida, is famous for its miracles--the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery.
    Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they're entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot. And they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America.
    But JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money--an Eden-like forest in Grange must be saved from strip-malling. When Bode and Chub brutally assault her and steal her ticket, JoLayne vows to track them down, take it back--and get revenge.
    The only one who can help is Tom Krome, a big-city investigative journalist now bitterly consigned to writing frothy features for a midsized central Florida newspaper. With a persuasive nudge from JoLayne, Krome is about to become part of a story that's bigger and more bizarre than anything he's ever covered.
    Chasing two heavily armed psychopaths down the coast of Florida is reckless enough, but Tom's got other problems--the murderous attention of a jealous judge; an actress wife who turns fugitive to avoid divorce court; an editor who speaks in tongues; and Tom's own growing fondness for the future millionairess with whom he's risking his neck.
    The pursuit takes them from the surreal streets of Grange to a buzzard-infested island deep in Florida Bay, where they finally catch up with the fledgling militia--Chub, Bode Gazzer, a newly recruited convenience-store clerk and their baffled hostage, a Hooters waitress.
    The climax explodes with the hilarious mayhem that is Carl Hiaasen's hallmark. Lucky You is his funniest, most deliriously gripping novel yet.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 1, 2008
    ISBN9780739376393
    Unavailable
    Lucky You: A Novel
    Author

    Carl Hiaasen

    Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida, where he started writing after being given a typewriter at the age of six. He writes a column for the Miami Herald and is the author of many bestselling novels, including Razor Girl and Bad Monkey. His books for younger readers include the Newbery Honor winner Hoot, as well as Flush, Scat, Chomp, and Skink – No Surrender.

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    Reviews for Lucky You

    3.5/5

    538 ratings23 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I felt the story went on way too long. Way. Lots of moronic nonsense for which he is well known. Some very funny parts, of course, but a bit too dark for my tastes ... and the language was very bad. Unnecessarily bad!
    • 3/5
      Fun, easy to read thriller that almost requires a familiarity with Florida's settings and characters.
    • 3/5
      Hiaasen's characters are unique and generally hilarious. Vulgar language throughout the book put me off the story. Yes, the language suited the characters, many of whom were suffering from impaired logic and morals. I just got tired of the swearing.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy a good Hiassen book, and this was one of my favorites. I read Hiassen. when I need something funny and creative and this one really hit the spot.
    • 5/5
      What would you do if you won a $28 million lotto jackpot? ...

      In this hilariously funny Carl Hiaasen masterpiece, that's exactly the amount of money a lotto ticket, purchased by JoLayne Lucks, an African American veterinary assistant, is worth.

      The novel's protagonist, JoLayne Lucks, a turtle enthusiast, goes into a convenience store, plays the same lotto numbers that she has played over a long course of time, and then bam! She finally hits it. However, there's one problem: Another ticket, matching the same winning numbers, was purchased by one Bode Gazzer, and his best friend "Chub", both unemployed, white supremacist criminals. So, as is lottery law, the $28 million jackpot has to be split right down the middle ... But not if Bode and "Chub" have anything to say?uh, do?about it. The two confederate flag-waving never-do-wells want the WHOLE pot to themselves. And when they both learn that the other winning ticket holder is a black woman, all sides-splittin' hell breaks loose.

      "Laughing out loud" is an understatement in the case of the page-turning, hard to put down Lucky You. This one is pure genius! And indeed, it truly is a must-read. One of the greatest of its time.
    • 2/5
      This may sound a little silly, but the villains were just too yucky to be enjoyable. Very unlikeable jerks. I guess I mean they weren't funny...had just read Sick Puppy as well, and the bad guys were much more palatable!
    • 3/5
      funny lark of a book
    • 3/5
      Not one of his best books. I guess I just miss Skink! I think what made it a little less enjoyable for me was that, although the characters were pretty wacky, they were closer to reality than most of his books. He goes from full-fledged farce in his other books to exaggerated reality in this one. Still a good read though.
    • 4/5
      I do enjoy Carl Hiassen's style and wit. I couldn't read all of them back to back, but when I want to take a break from my norm-mysteries, I truly enjoy them. They are laugh out loud funny. There are always the criminals-portrayed is stupid, doing idiotic stunts.
    • 4/5
      Two redneck felons from Miami win the Florida Lotto, but so does a quiet black woman from a small town known for its religious shrines. The men figure they shouldn't have to share their prize, especially with a Negro, and so they set out to steal her ticket. But JoLayne Lucks isn’t taking this injustice lying down. She has a noble purpose in mind for her share of the winnings and she’s not about to let those scumbags destroy her dream. With the help of a reporter who has lost his interest in features writing, she sets out to track the felons down and retrieve what is rightfully hers.

      This is Hiaasen at his best. The novel is full of quirky (or downright insane) characters – a man who drills his own stigmata in order to get donations from the faithful, a woman who is “married” to the oil stain on the highway that looks “just like Jesus,” an assistant managing editor who begins speaking in tongues when he encounters a dozen baby turtles near a “weeping” statue of the Virgin Mary. And these are the good guys!

      Throw in a little love interest, more than a few guns, the help of a mysterious federal agent, three co-conspirators who haven’t one brain between them, and two women who are far smarter than the criminals, and you have a recipe for a fast, enjoyable romp through the Florida landscape.
    • 4/5
      Two people both have the winning numbers in a $28 million Florida lottery jackpot. JoLayne Lucks is one. She’s happy with her potential half. A serial minor criminal Bodean Gazzer, the other winner, wants it all. He and his gun-loving, glue-sniffing sidekick, Chub, steal JoLayne’s ticket so they can fully fund their nascent white supremacist militia and battle the NATO troops that are sure to invade any day now. To help, they enlist Shiner, the clerk that sold JoLayne the ticket. Shiner “manifested the sort of submissive dimness that foretold a long sad future in minimum-security institutions.”Include a newspaper reporter, his wife, a jealous judge, his wife, a Hooter’s waitress, a town full of fraudulent miracles, and an ATF agent and you have a typically bizarre and thoroughly Carl Hiaasen novel.
    • 5/5
      Carl Hiaasen has a distinguished career as a newspaper reporter in Miami, Florida. Like Pete Dexter – a former columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News -- he turned his hand to novels. I have read about six of Hiaasen’s works and thoroughly enjoyed them all. His stories are gritty and down to earth, and have that special something which sounds a lot like newspaper writing. This 1997 novel, Hiaasen’s 7th, is no exception.Tom Krome has been relegated to covering mall openings, beauty pageants, and, in this case, the story of a woman who won $14 million in the Florida Lottery. Hiaasen writes, “The downsizing trend that swept newspapers in the early nineties was aimed at sustaining the bloated profit margins in which the newspaper industry had wallowed for most of the century. A new soulless breed of cooperate managers, unburdened by a passion for serious journalism, found an easy way to reduce the cost of publishing a daily newspaper. The first casualty was depth. … Cutting the amount of space devoted to news instantly justified cutting the staff” (21). Investigative teams were one of the first cuts these business types made.Krome was just “peaking in his career as an investigative reporter” (21). He applied for a job as a “feature writer” for The Register. He was offered a job as a divorce columnist, which he declined. A week later, the managing editor offered him a job as a feature writer, which Krome accepted, since he was trying to save for a move to Alaska.Meanwhile, JoLayne Lucks won half of a $28 million dollar lottery prize. The other half was won by a white supremacist in Miami, who was furious he had to share the prize with what he was sure was a member of one of Florida’s two major minority groups. His plan was to start a militia to protect the US from a NATO and UN led invasion of the US to eliminate all the white people from America. The lunatic conspiracy theories which came out of Bode Gazzer’s twisted mind were just that – sheer lunacy. His partner in this insanity was Chub, a trigger-happy racist, who occasionally expressed some skepticism about Bode’s theories but liked the idea of being part of a militia.Bode and Chub decide to steal JoLayne’s ticket. They find her shortly before Tom Krome does, and the two set out to track the thieves and recover her ticket. This is the main plot, but a humorous sub-plot involves Lucks’ hometown of Grange, Florida and some crazy con-artists running a religious miracle racket. All this is revealed in about the first 20 pages, so I am not giving much away. Lucky You is exciting and takes many unexpected twists and turns. I am not really a fan of mysteries and suspense stories, but the newspaper angle intrigues me, so I am working my way through Hiaasen’s work. This novel, like the others I have read, are great stories, with several interesting characters ranging from serious to funny to the bizarre. 5 stars--Jim, 6/10/12
    • 3/5
      This book has a better-than average, Hiassen collection of goofy characters that cause frequent bouts of head-shaking and grinning during its read. It's amazing how dumb some characters can be (Bode and Chub) and how deceptively-smart others can be (JoLayne). There is critical agreement on the high quality of Elmore Leonard's dialogue but I feel Mr. Hiassen's is a close second.
    • 4/5
      Hiaasen is a great read, his characters are quircky & outrageous. enjoyed
    • 5/5
      I'm always delighted to read another Carl Hiaasen and this book is delightful.JoLayne Lucks wins the lottery and dreams of saving land destined to become a jungle ruin in mid-Florida. However, before she can collect her winnings, two men brutally beat her up and take the ticket. Enlisting the aid of a has-been reporter and a Federal agent, JoLayne hunts the men down.Zany characters in a Bible-Belt town where all sorts of human-derived "miracles" happen, Hiaasen again reminds us that Florida needs saving. He does this in a witty,humorous style that keeps the reader entertained as well as enlightened. Fans will not be disappointed and new readers will have found a new friend.
    • 4/5
      Maybe it is just because this is the sixth Hiaasen novel I've read in half a year, but I didn't get as much from this asI have the otters. Per usual, the plotting and characterization is good, but the characters could interweave with tghe same shallowness of those in his other books. And CH's snobbery about the soiuth's "white trash" or "rednecks" is quite evident here. By the time I got to the end (which I cheered onwards to happen, I didn't reallyh care who had the winning $14 million lottery tickets.
    • 3/5
      Rarely have I found an author that has made me laugh out loud so many times in one book. Hiaasen has done that for me in the books of his I have read. I love his wit and dry humor. This is a great story about two lottery ticket winners in Florida. One is a young black woman that works in a vet's office and loves animals (keeps an aquarium full of 45 baby turtles that she saved) and the other is a redneck, white supremacist that doesn't feel like sharing the $28 mil., especially with a "negro". Thus begins the story of his search for JoLayne and her ticket. Along the road we meet a sexy newspaper journalist, his wife that refuses to divorce him because she might look bad, the religious fanatics that relieve the tourists of their money with weeping Mary idols and oil stains in the form of Jesus Christ, a Hooters waitress and many more hilarious characters. If you like a good laugh and a little mystery, give this one a shot.
    • 5/5
      This is Hiaason on top form: Ruthless and inept criminals, passion and love gone awry, religious nuts and turtles that look like the Apostles. No other writer can pull off humourous crime takes like Hiaason. The plot it clever, with a spread of characters whose stories weave together to create mayhem in Florida. The underlying message is, as usual, a basic good vs. evil tale, but there is no shortage of new and clever material. This is a book which you feel could be wrapped up at just about any chapter, but you can see there are plenty of pages left - and that's great news. The characters are offbeat but likable, the bad guys awfully dumb and equally despicable. Great writing. A fun and enjoyable read which is highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Hiaasen has a real knack for writing about the dregs of society. His characters seem impossibly colorful, but if you're a reader of Fark, you know that in Florida this plot is completely plausible. I love Hiaasen's matter-of-fact satire. Though I have to say I kinda thought the Hooter's girl deserved the second lottery ticket.
    • 5/5
      Grange is a small south Florida town, famous for it's religious shrines and fanatics, like the Weeping Virgin Mother (with twice daily performances for the pilgrims) and the Oil Stain Jesus out on the county blacktop. But nothing much newsworthy ever happens there until one fateful Saturday night. JoLayne Lucks is the beautiful black vet's assistant who plays the same six numbers every week in the state lottery and on this particular Saturday realizes that she has one of two winning lottery tickets each worth a cool $14 million. Her dream is to spend it rescuing a local plot of swampland from a strip mall developer. Bodean Gazzer and his redneck buddy, Chubb, are the founding members of a home-grown White Supremacy militia they've called The White Clarion Aryans, and this unlikely pair hold the other winning ticket, and they want the whole $28 million. Afire with paramilitary fervor, Bode and Chubb need the cash to bankroll the start-up of the White Clarion Aryans before NATO takes over America with heavily armed paratroopers coming in from the Bahamas. In a burst of uncharacteristic deductive reasoning, they figure out who has the other ticket and drive down from the Tampa Bay area to steal it. They break in and beat JoLayne and steal her ticket, but before they can cash it she mounts a hot pursuit with the help of local journalist Tom Krome. As they chase Bode, Chubb and a kidnapped Hooter's waitress through the swamps and sleazy dives, dodging bullets and local religious fanatics, Tom and JoLayne leave a wake of mayhem and hilarity.I just love Hiaasen's books. There's nothing quite like them for pure unadulterated escapism. The descriptions of the ridiculous bad guys, the completely cockamamie ideas and unlikely outcomes never fail to entertain me. I've read nearly all of his books and I have to admit that I'd be hard pressed to try to pick a favorite, they are all just so delicious. This one cracked me up several times, drawing stares from my family. Nobody writes a more satisfying end to such wonderful tales as Hiaasen. This one gets a high 5.
    • 4/5
      Hiaasen is a funny author that doesn't solely rely on his jokes. He has well-developed characters and interesting, yet amusing, plot twists.
    • 5/5
      Grange, Florida is a small, out-of-the-way community known for its religious miracles, from the weeping Madonna to the stigmata man with holes in his palms that do not heal. Not to mention the road stain in the form of Jesus and the woman who visits every day in her wedding dress. And now, one of their own, JoLayne Lucks, has won one-half of the state’s lottery of $28 million. JoLayne works part-time as a veterinarian’s assistant and plans to use her lottery winnings to buy and maintain wooded acreage in danger of being developed into a shopping mall. The other half of the lottery winnings belong to Bode Grazzer, a short man convinced NATO forces are lining up in the Bahamas ready to invade America, and his sidekick Chub, a paint-sniffing wannabe mercenary. Chub and Bode, needing money to begin their own supremacist organization so they can defend the white man when America is invaded, decide to steal the other lottery ticket. They break into JoLayne’s home, beat her up and take off with the ticket. On the way to the lottery office, they recruit a convenience store clerk known for his lack of cognitive abilities and take hostage a Hooters waitress Chub has fallen in love with. To JoLayne’s aid comes Tom Krome, an embittered former investigative reporter now working for a small newspaper covering social events. Tom’s editor sends him to Grange to write a story about the lottery winner, but before he even pulls out his notepad, Tom finds himself in cahoots with JoLayne and hot on the trail of Bode and Chub. All six end up on a small island in Florida Bay, where a confrontation develops over the two lottery tickets and where two will remain behind forever. Carl Hiaasen is a master at developing wacky characters and zany plots and dialogue that will leave the reader in stitches throughout the entire book. This is a book all readers will enjoy as they follow the madcap antics of these screwball characters.
    • 4/5
      Another riot of a book this time it's about a winning lottery ticket. Actually two winning lottery tickets. JoLayne Lucks uses the numbers that corespond to the age she dumped a tiresome lover, every week, this time they're lucky for her. She's the winner of 14million, half of the 28 million jackpot. Problem is that shes known because she lives in a small community and the racist idiots who won the other half want the rest.Tom is the reporter assigned to do a puff piece on her, just before he leaves his lover's husband has his house shot up, so there's really nothing for him to go back to.A fun romp and better, for me at least, than Stormy weather, but quite similar in feel. Hiaasen has no patience with fools and it shows.