by Carl Hiaasen
First published 2004
Cherry Pye built her career as a pop sensation starting at fourteen, but now at twenty-two, she needs a comeback after her latest substance abuse spiral. Her handlers employ Ann DeLusia as an undercover body double who appears in public whenever Cherry is too intoxicated to function. When obsessed photographer Bang Abbott mistakes Ann for the real Cherry and abducts her from a South Beach hotel, Cherry's team faces a crisis. They must rescue Ann without exposing her existence to the public or to Cherry herself. The situation becomes more complex when Ann encounters Skink, Florida's former governor who now lives as a hermit in the mangroves. Skink heads toward Miami to find her while Cherry's bizarre entourage scrambles to locate Ann first. Cherry's handlers include her controlling stage mother, a lecherous record producer, plastic surgery obsessed twin publicists, and a bodyguard who wields garden tools as weapons. The clock ticks as Cherry's concert tour approaches and multiple parties converge on Miami with conflicting goals.
Genres: fiction, satire, mystery, crime, contemporary
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: celebrity, enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Miami, South Beach
Period: 21st-century
337 pages · Loose Leaf · Alfred A. Knopf
Content warnings: addiction, substance-abuse