The Extravaganza of the Sea, a shady casino boat heads out in a hurricane for what will turn out to be its final voyage. Wally is thirty year old loser living with his mother and the lead singer of the ship's band Jimmy and the Contusions. Wally has a thing for Fay, who is a single cocktail waitress with a toddler at home. Arnie and Phil are ancient retirees bored with their mundane and restrictive existences at The Beaux Arts Retirement complex. Tark is a low-life looking to get rich. Bobby Kemp is a man with a lot of dirty fingers in a lot of dirty pies. Eddie is an ex-con and the captain of the Extravaganza. He just wants to settle down with his girlfriend Luz and her little boy and lead a normal crime free life. The only problem ... Eddie knows the true purpose of the Extravaganza. The ship is actually a front for a drug operation run by a fearsome criminal mastermind named Lou Tarant. Every night that the ship goes out, it stops in international waters where a fishing boat pulls up behind and mysterious transfers are made. This night, however, is different. Tark, the pilot of the fishing boat, is planning a violent caper that will set him up for life. And the lives of Wally, his bandmates, Fay, Arnie & Phil, Bobby Kemp and Eddie White will be forever changed in the process. This collection of misfits are hilariously, disturbingly and touchingly thrown together for the adventure of a lifetime. An adventure that will leave you laughing, crying, cringing and wanting for more. Dave Barry score once again with another salute to the all around wackiness of South Florida.

Anyone who loves to laugh.



"I laughed so hard, I almost fell out of my chair." -Stephen King-

The portion where Frank and Juan, two hired guns, are trapped in a boat cabin with three very large, queasy henchman. When Juan himself vomits, it strikes up a chain reaction that sets everyone to vomiting. And Frank gets caught in the middle, slipping and sliding in what he calls "gastric stew".



Arnie & Phil and their retirment home exploits is one of the highlights of this book. Their daring escape from Beaux Arts is gut busting.



When Tina, the farting croupier, chases her cheating (and very naked) boyfriend around the ship with a butcher knife.



When Kaz, one of the nauseous henchmen, keeps falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

When Jimmy and the Contusions break Extravanganza protocol and start singing their kind of music. The old man who dances even without music is hilarious.

Tark was an unbelieveably violent character. Some of the stuff he does is slightly disturbing, making this book innappropriate for some readers.

Read the rest of Dave Barry's books. The man has a talent for making people laugh.

It was just an excellent, fast paced read that made me look forward to Dave Barry's follow-up fiction. the only other fiction book he has written was the predecessor to Tricky Business, Big Trouble. Big Trouble is another salute to South Floridian whackiness.

What can I say about Dave Barry that I have not already said. A lot. Barry has a brilliant comedic mind. He also has a knack for creating sympathetic characters. Characters you want to see pull through. And he handles the touching scenes with just the right amount of heart, never seeming too cold, never seeming too sweet.

It's not "Anna Karenina" or "Gone With the Wind" but it will take you on a hell of a ride.

I'm hoping Hollywood doesn't ruin this story by adapting it to the screen. If they do, I'm hoping Dave Barry will be there to put his two cents in. I don't like the fact that people look at movies more than they do books, but stories like this should be enjoyed by everybody. If it means adapting them into films, then so be it. Let the cameras roll. Just don't sell the public short by dumbing things down.

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Created Dec 08, 2003 at 3:53pm • Submit your own review...