Editing Sick Puppy (section)

==Literary significance and criticism==
''Sick Puppy'' has been reviewed well and one example describes Hiaasen's skills thus.

{{blockquote|Hiaasen is best known for serving up heaping helpings of {{sic|just desserts}}. His bad guys are the baddest, and his good guys are anything but the Dudley Dorights of popular fiction. How does Hiaasen come up with his new means of doling out justice to the terminally greedy? Just when you think, "they'll never get out of this mess," he devises a plan, and they're off and running.<ref name="review1">{{cite web | title=Sick Puppy review |last=Shea | first=Roz | work=Bookreporter.com | url=http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0446604666.asp | year=2006 |access-date=2006-12-12 }}</ref>}}

Other reviews praised the novel's harder edges.

{{blockquote|Sick Puppy is ultimately as unforgiving as nature's order. The characters are not likeable. There is no redemption or apology. But that's Hiaasen's design. In the end, we are treated to one of his favorite devices, the epilogue with thumbnail descriptions of the fates of many of his characters. Some of the scoundrels prosper, some don't. There's the sense that there is more work to be done. Sure, Hiaasen himself may not be ready to kidnap the dogs of unregenerate litterbugs or clobber drunken jet skiers, but it's the thought that counts.<ref name="review2">{{cite web | title=Sick Puppy review | last=Schmutterer | first=Martin | work=Curled Up With a Good Book | url=http://www.curledupwithagoodbook.com/puppy.htm | year=2000 | access-date=2006-12-12 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927152606/http://www.curledupwithagoodbook.com/puppy.htm | archive-date=2007-09-27 }}</ref>}}

In his review of Hiaasen's later novel ''[[Skinny Dip (novel)|Skinny Dip]]'', [[Michael Grunwald]] made several references to the characters of ''Sick Puppy'':

{{blockquote|Carl Hiaasen is South Florida's literary proctologist: he examines the region's assholes.  The rapacious villains of Hiaasen's crime novels do not just commit murder, extortion, assault, fraud, and every conceivable variety of larceny; they also park in handicapped spaces, cheat on their trophy wives, tell racist jokes, flaunt their wealth in unusually obnoxious ways, and mangle the lyrics to good rock-and-roll songs.  They do not just do bad things, like steal wheelchairs, shoot cops, and scam retirees; they are bad people, "maggots," "vermin," "cretins," "sleazeballs," "sewer scum," "reprobates," "whorehoppers."  They care more about their golf games than their families, and more about money than anything else on earth.  They drive Range Rovers with "COJONES" on their vanity plates. They don't listen and they don't learn.<ref name="review3">{{cite web | title=Skinny Dip review | last=Grunwald | first=Michael | work=Swamp Things | url=http://www.powells.com/review/2004_11_11.html | year=2004 | access-date=2013-08-12 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://archive.today/20131208224049/http://www.powells.com/review/2004_11_11.html | archive-date=2013-12-08 }}</ref>}}