Customer Reviews

Too High

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a huge fan of snakes and eastern Kentucky, I found the book to be more than entertaining. It was a complete riot! This book has a little bit of everything from state militias, Bugs Bunny, Willie Nelson, and timber rattlesnakes to keep you on your toes. It was a wonderful read, and I would suggest to anyone who has ever looked fondly at reptiles or plastic worms - read it!

This is a book full of high-level hilarity, with many interwoven themes that you cannot put it down for fear of losing one of the threads. Hirschfeld has done another masterful job, and I look forward to his third effort. A note for Mr. Clark (one of the earlier "reviewers" of this book). Authors don't draw their front covers, and they have no say in the design. The fanciful snake on the front cover is just that -- fanciful, and is unrelated to the intellectual content of this fine volume. Also, "antivenom" has completely overriden the almost unknown scientific term, "antivenin," in common usage in the United States. Had Hirschfeld used antivenin in his book, it would have been misunderstood by most of the public, and laughed at by academic herpetologists. He did it just right. In fact, he did the entire book right. It is herpetologically one of the most accurate books of fiction ever written.

This book has a slow start. I almost quit reading it a third of the way through, but I'm really glad I kept going. It just keeps getting better and better up to an hysterically funny climax.

A great follow-up to Aloha, Mr. Lucky. Hirschfeld has a great cast of characters and an hilarious plot to keep them all in various stages of stress and danger. The inept but dangerous militia is wonderful. Jesus Bob and Rita Rae are fun villains. The heroes, Digger Fitz (an enjoyable character in the first novel) and his niece Nikki are ably led by Sherriff Cooney McCoy. I only put it down when I was laughing so hard I had to wipe my eyes.

I'll admit that I picked this book up when the author was compared to Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiasan. Sounded like a good combination of suspenseful crime fiction added with Southern Humor.

This book which features a number of memorable characters including Digger Fitz and a fundamentalist milita member Jesus-Bob is alternately suspenseful, funny and a profound observer of southern culture (although the story is based in Kentucky which is on the cusp of being southern.) The basic plot of the story is the unraveling of a murder of a family member of Digger Fitz. In unraveling that mystery, the story takes all kinds of twists that include early American History and the militia movement in this country. Although the story is a farce, I credit the author for writing a book that is much deeper than just its comedy.

In addition to the previous comparisons with Elmore Leonard, etc., another comparison could be made to Harry Crews. However, unlike Crews' work there is a positive optimism in this book. Yes, there are plenty of scummy characters in this book, but there are also some good ones that will put a warm smile on your face and give the book redeeming value.

It's not a classic but it's worth reading.

This is a great book that blends accurate accounts of the French and Indian war and Kentucky snake hunting with the outrageous antics of a fictional Kentucky militia. I could not put this book down! If you love archaeology, herpetology, history or just enjoy a good laugh, I recommend this book. It was more fun than road crusin' McCreary county on a rainy night in June lookin' for Spadefoots.

This was a tremendous book. The characters were original, entertaining and humorous. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys great fiction.

Jungle Jim Bybee was driving his bus filled with 436 rattlesnakes through McAfee County, Kentucky, when he took a hairpin curve too fast. He dies in the subsequent crash, but his cargo escape.

At around the same time that Jungle Jim's serpents tasted freedom, Hawaiian archeologist Harmon "Digger" Fitz is in town for a family reunion with his cousin retired archeologist Edgar Fitz and his niece Nikki. However, instead of meeting up with Edgar, County Sheriff Cooney McCoy informs him his relative is dead. Not trusting law enforcement officials to seek the truth and justice as opposed to solving the case by blaming the "foreigner" namely himself, Digger accompanied by Nikki begin digging for clues. Soon Digger and Nikki find themselves in a tug of war between two rivals wanting to possess French and Indian War artifact. The duo also tries to avoid an assortment of lunatics claiming Armageddon has arrived marked by the serpents among them and a militia ready to destroy the world to stop the FBI-ET collusion from succeeding.

Though threads are left dangling and the who-done-it seems more like a subplot, fans who enjoy a farcical very amusing jaunt will take pleasure from TOO HIGH. The story line is a wild ride in the countryside as the likable and intelligent Digger bounces from one misadventure to another in comic often slapstick style. The cast provides perspective often in a fringe viewpoint, which in turn makes Corson Hirschfeld's novel a fun to read experience and send the audience seeking the author's first novel, ALOHA, MR. LUCKY.

Harriet Klausner

Hirschfeld dumps a lot of stuff into this story: wacky militia members, a truck full of rattlesnakes and a rattlesnake expert, rednecks, historical facts, a druggie psycopath (and his sister), eccentric rich guys, and the obligatory kinky sex scene (this one involving an Indian woman and a guy pretending to be a settler woman in distress). I'm guessing there were dwarves in earlier revisions.

However, I didn't find the characters particularly compelling and the writing is only average, so for me it all added up to just a typical piece of pop fiction. It would be the perfect book to read on the airplane if it were 250 pages instead of 450, but I found myself wishing it would end sooner than it did.

The artist, Stephen de las Heras painted a snake on the cover
of "Too High" that has the body of a King snake and the head of
a Coral snake. Corson claims, in his credits, at least to be
knowledgeable in herpetology. He should have caught this error.
He and his bubbah, J.T. collected reptiles from one end of
Kentucky to the other (frontispiece)? On page 81 Corson has his
herpetologist (Nikki) describe a Coral snake and compare it to
the Scarlet King snake and she also uses the non-word "anti-
venom" in lieu of the correct word: "anti-venin". Why?
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