Smokeout

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this edgy, ripped-from-the-headlines novel, there's a crucial vote on Big Tobacco coming up in the Florida legislature, and the outcome will decide whether or not tobacco companies can be legally sued for damages. At the center of this legislative hurricane is State Senator Dolly Nichols, whose principled stand on individual rights has always prompted a pro-tobacco voting record. But that's not good enough for Bartholomew Simons, president and CEO of Roper-Joyner Holdings (RJH), who wants to make sure that his tobacco company in particular comes out the winner. He also needs to save his own butt--there's an incriminating memo circulating with his name on it, and he wants it destroyed. The search for the memo is played out against an orgy of arm-twisting, backstabbing, blackmailing and backroom lobbying, involving a cast of media hustlers, a female lobbyist with Playboy pictures in her past and libidinous legislators. A baker's dozen of subplots converge in a wild and woolly finale that teeters on the edge of farce. But thanks to Date's animated characters, who are quirky without being cartoonish, and impeccable narrative timing, the fast-moving plot never veers out of control. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Date, Tallahassee bureau chief for the Palm Beach Sentinel and author of Speed Week, has written a raucous indictment of the tobacco industry and its manipulation of the political process that reads like Carl Hiaasen on testosterone. Set in Tallahassee during a recent legislative session, Smokeout follows the lobbying frenzy preceding a vote to repeal landmark legislation that enables big tobacco companies to be sued in Florida. Caught in the headlights of the big tobacco steamroller are Dorothy Nichols, an honest state senator with ambitions to become Senate president; Jeena Golden, a novice lobbyist with scruples who finds herself holding evidence that could get her client indicted; and Gov. Bolling Waites, the ultimate political pragmatist, who loves to get down and dirty, particularly when he knows he's right. Getting caught up in the heat of the chase, the Roper-Joiner Tobacco Company resorts to bribery, kidnapping, and attempted murder when milder tactics don't produce the desired effect. The result is a hilarious tale that takes random shots at both the tobacco industry and the political process gone awry while giving the good guys a few hard lumps in the bargain. Recommended for all public libraries.--Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

From Date (Speedweek, 1999, etc.), a Florida journalist on his way to being the distaff Carl Hiaasen, another bumpy burlesque lampooning the events surrounding the Sunshine State's landmark legislation that opened the tobacco industry to billion-dollar lawsuits. Governor Bolling Waites, a politically savvy, speargun-wielding fictional stand-in for Lawton Chiles, has just vetoed a Florida bill that would have gotten the tobacco industry off the hook for causing millions of cancer deaths. Bartholomew Simons, the unspeakably vile Nietzsche-quoting CEO of RJH, whose cool Larry Lama cartoon character (remember Joe Camel?) is selling millions of cigarettes to teenagers, has opened his checkbook to buy as many Florida state senators as possible so they'll vote to override the veto. He's also lined up a suspect young political consultant, Murphy Moran, the lethally beautiful lobbyist Ruth Ann Bronson, and Colonel Marvin Lambert, a lunatic Rogue Warrior—type security samurai, who must locate a purloined memo that, if made public, would doom the tobacco industry's cause. Missing among the dozens of comically, if not revoltingly, corrupt lawmakers lining up to be bought is State Senator Dolly Nichols, a Republican who thinks that government shouldn't legislate public choice. New to money politics is Jeena Golden, a drop-dead gorgeous blond (she advises her protégé to dress like a slut and never wear underwear) hired by Bronson to push for Big Tobacco. Her former boyfriend is Governor Waites's right-hand man, FBI agent Johnny Espinosa, who has slowly assembled a collection of covertly recorded conversations that might land every state politician in theslammer. Datebrings these and other venal Floridians together, shuffles the deck and deals out a series of increasingly ludicrous scenes whose comic inventiveness underscores his point: that against big money interests, it's a miracle that anyone can do the right thing. Cynical, caustic, and amusing: an ensemble story that uses Big Tobacco as a wedge to reveal much of the ugliness of Florida's political scene, little of its charm and saving graces.