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Skin Tight (novel)
''Skin Tight'' is a novel by Carl Hiaasen. It focuses on a former detective for the Florida State Attorney's office, who becomes the target of a murder plot by a corrupt plastic surgeon. Plot summary Dr. Rudy Graveline, the director of the prestigious Whispering Palms Surgery Center in Bal Harbour, Florida, is a complete fraud who has never been trained or certified in cosmetic surgery. He has built his reputation through social connections and by taking credit for the work of his associates. On the rare occasions when Rudy himself performs surgery, something goes wrong. He has weathered numerous malpractice complaints and investigations by the state, through bribery and intimidation. Rudy learns from his former nurse, Maggie Gonzalez, that a private investigator named Mick Stranahan is investigating the disappearance of college student Victoria Barletta, who Rudy accidentally killed during a botched nose job. Rudy decides to have Mick killed. In reality, Maggie has turned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Hiaasen
Carl Hiaasen (; born March 12, 1953) is an American journalist and novelist. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for middle grade readers. Two of his novels have been made into feature films, and one has been made into a TV series. Hiaasen's adult novels are humorous crime thrillers set in Florida. They feature casts of eccentric, sometimes grotesque characters and satirize aspects of American popular culture. Many of the novels include themes related to environmentalism and political corruption in his native state. Early life and education The first of four children born to Odel and Patricia Hiaasen, Hiaasen was born in 1953 of Norwegian and Irish ancestry. Raised in Plantation, Florida, then a rural suburb of Fort Lauderdale, he started writing at age six when his father gave him a typewriter for Christmas. After graduating from Plantation High School in 1970, he entered Emory U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blondell Wayne Tatum
Blondell Wayne Tatum, a.k.a. Chemo, is a fictional character who has appeared in two novels by Carl Hiaasen, '' Skin Tight'' (1989) and '' Star Island'' (2010). Personal history Tatum was born in North Dakota. His parents belonged to a religious sect that believed in polygamy, vegetarianism, and refusing to pay income taxes. Tatum was orphaned at age six when his parents were killed in a shootout with FBI agents in a post office outside Grand Forks. He went to live with his aunt and uncle, who were fugitives from felony mail fraud charges in New Jersey, masquerading as Amish wheat farmers in rural Pennsylvania. Blondell first turned to crime when he was sixteen ( holding up a bank with a pitchfork), eventually becoming a corrupt, though popular, city official in a small Pennsylvania town. His life took a drastic turn due to a freak accident during an electrolysis procedure to remove two ingrown hair follicles from the tip of his nose. While Tatum was unconscious, the doctor suff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Booby Trap
A booby trap is a device or setup that is intended to kill, harm or surprise a human or an animal. It is triggered by the presence or actions of the victim and sometimes has some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. The trap may be set to act upon trespassers that enter restricted areas, and it can be triggered when the victim performs an action (e.g., opening a door, picking something up, or switching something on). It can also be triggered by vehicles driving along a road, as in the case of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Booby traps should not be confused with mantraps which are designed to catch a person. Lethal booby traps are often used in warfare, particularly guerrilla warfare, and traps designed to cause injury or pain are also sometimes used by criminals wanting to protect drugs or other illicit property, and by some owners of legal property who wish to protect it from theft. Booby traps which merely cause discomfort or embarrassment are a popular f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackmail
Blackmail is a criminal act of coercion using a threat. As a criminal offense, blackmail is defined in various ways in common law jurisdictions. In the United States, blackmail is generally defined as a crime of information, involving a threat to do something that would cause a person to suffer embarrassment or financial loss. By contrast, in the Commonwealth its definition is wider: for example the laws of England and Wales and Northern Ireland state that: In popular culture, 'blackmail' involves a threat to reveal or publicize either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to family members or associates rather than to the general public. Acts of blackmail can also involve using threats of physical, mental or emotional harm, or of criminal prosecution, against the victim or someone close to the victim. It is normally carried out for personal gain, most c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosthesis
In medicine, a prosthesis (: prostheses; from ), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through physical trauma, disease, or a condition present at birth (Congenital, congenital disorder). Prostheses may restore the normal functions of the missing body part, or may perform a cosmetic function. A person who has undergone an amputation is sometimes referred to as an Amputation, amputee, however, this term may be offensive. Rehabilitation for someone with an amputation is primarily coordinated by a Physical medicine and rehabilitation, physiatrist as part of an inter-disciplinary team consisting of physiatrists, prosthetists, nurses, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. Prostheses can be created by hand or with computer-aided design (CAD), a software interface that helps creators design and analyze the creation with computer-generated Technical drawing, 2-D and 3D computer graphics, 3-D graphics as well as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
String Trimmer
A string trimmer, also known by the portmanteau strimmer and the trademarks Weedwacker, Weed Eater and Whipper Snipper, is a garden power tool for cutting grass, small weeds, and groundcover. It uses a whirling monofilament line instead of a blade, which protrudes from a rotating spindle at the end of a long shaft topped by a gasoline engine or electric motor. String trimmers are commonly used for cutting low foliage near obstacles or on steep or irregular terrain. Most professional-grade line trimmers can accept attachment blades to be used as brush cutters for denser vegetation. History The string trimmer was invented in the early 1970s by George Ballas of Houston, Texas, who conceived the idea while watching the revolving action of the cleaning brushes in an automatic car wash. His first trimmer was made by attaching pieces of heavy duty fishing line to a tin can bolted to an edger. Ballas developed this into what he called the " Weed Eater", since it chewed up the grass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Barracuda
''Sphyraena barracuda'', commonly known as the great barracuda, is a species of barracuda, a genus of 27 species of large ray-finned fish found in subtropical oceans worldwide. In its natural habitat, the great barracuda is an apex predator. Distribution and habitat The great barracuda is present in tropical to warm temperate waters, in subtropical parts of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Primarily found in oceans near the equator, the great barracuda finds refuge in mangroves to deep reefs, and seagrass beds, up to depths of . Juveniles and small adults typically inhabit locations near the shore, such as mangroves and seagrass meadows, while adults are typically found further away from shore around artificial structures, reefs, and rock outcroppings. These fish use these structures as a form of refuge. Studies conducted by a research group that tagged and monitored these fish in the Bahamas concluded that a significant proportion of the population stayed in their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Submachine Gun
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine (firearms), magazine-fed automatic firearm, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an automatic firearm with notably less firepower than a machine gun (hence the prefix "wikt:sub-, sub-"). As a machine gun must fire rifle cartridges to be classified as such, submachine guns are not considered machine guns. The submachine gun was developed during World War I (1914–1918) as a Close-quarters battle, close quarter offensive weapon, mainly for trench raiding. At its peak during World War II (1939–1945), millions of submachine guns were made for shock troops, assault troops and auxiliaries whose military doctrine, doctrines emphasized close-quarters combat, close-quarter suppressive fire. New submachine gun designs appeared frequently during the Cold War,Military Small Arms Of The 20th Century. Ian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woodchipper
A tree chipper or woodchipper is a machine used for reducing wood (generally tree limbs or trunks) into smaller woodchips. They are often portable, being mounted on wheels on frames suitable for towing behind a truck or van. Power is generally provided by an internal combustion engine from . There are also high-power chipper models mounted on trucks and powered by a separate engine. These models usually also have a hydraulic winch. Tree chippers are typically made of a hopper with a collar, the chipper mechanism itself, and an optional collection bin for the chips. A tree limb is inserted into the hopper (the collar serving as a partial safety mechanism to keep human body parts away from the chipping blades) and started into the chipping mechanism. The chips exit through a chute and can be directed into a truck-mounted container or onto the ground. Typical output is chips on the order of across in size. The resulting wood chips have various usages such as being spread as a g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jaguar Cars
Jaguar (, ) is the sports car and luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British multinational corporation, multinational automaker, car manufacturer with its headquarters in Whitley, Coventry, England. Jaguar Cars was the company that was responsible for the production of Jaguar cars until its operations were fully merged with those of Land Rover to form Jaguar Land Rover on 1 January 2013. Jaguar's business was founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922, originally making motorcycle sidecars before developing bodies for passenger cars. Under the ownership of SS Cars, the business extended to complete cars made in association with Standard Motor Company, many bearing ''Jaguar'' as a model name. The company's name was changed from SS Cars to Jaguar Cars in 1945. A merger with the British Motor Corporation followed in 1966, the resulting enlarged company now being renamed as British Motor Holdings (BMH), which in 1968 merged with Leyland Motor Corporation and became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prime Suspect
''Prime Suspect'' is a British police procedural television series devised by Lynda La Plante. Broadcast on ITV between 1991 and 2006, it stars Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison, one of the first female Detective Chief Inspectors in Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service, who rises to the rank of Detective Superintendent while confronting institutionalised sexism within the police force. For her role as Tennison, Mirren received three consecutive British Academy Television Awards for Best Actress between 1992 and 1994, two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, and in 2006, the British public ranked her number 29 in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars. Plot ''Prime Suspect'' focuses on a no-nonsense female Detective Chief Inspector (DCI), Jane Tennison (played by Helen Mirren), who is an officer in the Metropolitan Police, initially at the fictional Southampton Row police station. The series follows her consta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
