Mon. Aug. 2

Carl Hiaasen is one clever bastard - to quote Ian Dury - and our favorite novelists. Has been for years. With crazy, but believable characters (villains, hereos and mixes of both) a vehemently pro-environmentalist slant, and just some of the best black humor going, Hiaasen just keeps hitting the mark. "Star Island," doesn't come out til July 27, but the bits we know: It involves a one-time teen pop star named Cherry Pye, who hit the skids, did the D/A rehab route and is in the midst of another comeback. (Remind you of anyone, Britney?) She also has a body double, who functions for her when Cherry just can't make it off the floor to go clubbing, and this body double manages to get kidnapped from South Beach - Florida is Hiaasen's stomping ground (he loves the place, hates what's happened to it) - by a paparazzi. It's fair to say hilarity will ensue, but that hilarity will have a subtext. We know this because Skink, Hiaasen's ex-gov-turned-madman-hermit-environmentalist makes a return. And we know it because Hiaasen really is a master at wrenching some heart and soul out of a funny romp. He's the literary Warren Zevon. And it's no stretch to see why the two became friends after being mutual admirers, and ended up writing a song together. "Basket Case." Hiaasen reads from "Star Island" Monday Aug. 2 at 6 at the Brattle Theatre. I have an interview with Hiaasen up at www.thephoenix.com.

40 Brattle St., Cambridge, 617-876-8021 www.brattlefilm.org