Big Trouble

By: Dave Barry

Narrated by: Dick Hill

In his career, Dave Barry has done just about everything - written best-selling nonfiction, won a Pulitzer Prize, seen his life turned into a television series. And now, at last, he has joined the long list of literary figures, from Jane Austen to Tolstoy, who have made the transition from humor columnist to novelist - and done it with a style and inventiveness that establishes that, yes, he is very good at that, too.

In the city of Coconut Grove, Florida, these things happen: A struggling adman named Eliot Arnold drives home from a meeting with the Client From Hell. His teenage son, Matt, fills his Squirtmaster 9000 for his turn at a high school game called Killer. Matt's intended victim, Jenny Herk, sits down in front of the TV with her mom for what she hopes will be a peaceful evening - for once. Jenny's alcoholic and secretly embezzling stepfather, Arthur, emerges from the maid's room, angry at being rebuffed - again. Henry and Leonard, two hit men from New Jersey, pull up to the Herks' house for a real game of Killer - Arthur's embezzlement apparently not having been quite so secret to his employers after all. And a homeless man named Puggy settles down for the night in a treehouse just inside the Herks' yard.

In a few minutes, a chain of events that will change the lives of each and every one of them will begin, and will leave some of them wiser, some of them deader, and some of them definitely looking for a new line of work.

With a wicked wit, razor-sharp observations, rich characters, and a plot with more twists than the Inland Waterway, Dave Barry makes his debut a complete and utter triumph.

©2000 Dave Barry; 2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Caution: Vulgarity Magnified

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes/No It depends upon the individual. The vulgarity definitely defines the unsavory characters, but it can be very offensive. Sexual references about underage girls is really never necessary in a book geared to adults.

What was most disappointing about Dave Barry’s story?

While he defines his characters with witty dialogue, He could have created equally offensive characters with a less graphic vocabulary.

Great listen

Hilarious light humour, totally entertaining to listen to on long drives. Characters were funny, if not just a wee bit exaggerated which made the story even funnier. Good voice for all the characters. Highly recommended to all above the age of 16.

Great story!

I enjoyed this book so much. Narrator was excellent. I was especially impressed with Mr. Barry’s acknowledgements at the end. Keep writing!! Please!!

Very Ammusing and Well Written

Excellent book, very comical. It wasn't "oh my gawd my sides are splitting" funnybut it was clever, well-developed, kept my interest. Easily recommended.

A fun story

Where does Big Trouble rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Sometimes I just want a fun, mindless story and this fits the bill. It's simple, but well developed and lots of fun.

Love the movie, Love the book.

Not very often that I like the movie better than the book but this book is one of the few, if not only one, that this is true, but just barely.
I loved this book but I really like the changes they made to the movie keeping the movie really close to the book.

A Terrific Listen

I am a big Dave Barry fan, and have seen the movie several times - it’s one of our favorites. The audio presentation is very true to the book, as is the movie, which is extremely well cast. The female voices were not as convincing as the male character voices (especially Anna), but the narrator‘a accents were fun and helped differentiate the parts. I thought the performance was very good.

LOVED THIS BOOK!

I read this book the 1st time back when I was a teenager and loved it. Now my 2nd time reading it I love it just as much! The author uses such interesting details in his descriptions of the characters and surroundings. You can see the story so clearly, that you feel like it's memories you are experiencing, rather than a story of fiction. And the narrator is AMAZINGLY good! Very well "executed" production all the way around.

Funny, Slapstick

Truly enjoyed the humor. This would be an excellent commute book to make traffic enjoyable.

Witty but overboard with the language

Many funny parts, as you would expect with Dave Barry. The plot was fairly basic with all the characters interrelated in some way. I would have enjoyed the book more without such bad language. There were more F words in this novel than in a Bruce Willis movie. I understand he was trying to be true to what his characters would say, but it was way over the top with bad language for me. He warned us about the language in the forward to the book, but I didn't know it would be quite that bad.