LUCKY YOU

Hiaasen's comic novels are like a captivating circus performance. He keeps piling on more and more improbable characters and loopy plot developments while somehow never losing his command of even a single part. His latest uproarious invention begins when his resourceful heroine, JoLayne Lucks, finds herself with the winning Florida lottery ticket and, soon after, the attention of two grungy, dim-witted white supremacists eager to finance their own militia. Wilson provides entertaining, textured characterizations for Hiaasen's vivid cast, which also includes a newspaper reporter, a Hooter's girl and the owners of a commercial religious shrine. The disappointment is Wilson's delivery of the main narrative voice--he sounds like a 1950's news announcer with none of the irony and bite that make Hiaasen a singular pleasure. M.O. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 98]