Florida Roadkill (Serge Storms Series #1)

Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press

"[A] rollicking satire."

Miami Herald

Impossible as it sounds, Dorsey has muscled in on the big guns' territory and ripped the place upside down and inside out. Jittery, bizarre and utterly charming...Roadkill reads like Quentin Tarantino wrote it on a rum-and-speedball binge after baking too long in the ferocious August sun. Except Tarantino's characters are a bit tame in comparison to some of Dorsey's mangy minions.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A violent, funny, hyperkinetic novel...where the bizarre is downright commonplace.

New York Times Book Review

Vulgar, violent, and gaudier than sunsets on the Keys, Dorsey's roadshow is some fun.

Tampa Tribune

Fiercely energetic, outrageously funny...imagine Hunter S. Thompson sharing a byline with Groucho Marx.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A violent, funny, hyperkinetic novel...where the bizarre is downright commonplace.

Miami Herald

Impossible as it sounds, Dorsey has muscled in on the big guns' territory and ripped the place upside down and inside out. Jittery, bizarre and utterly charming...Roadkill reads like Quentin Tarantino wrote it on a rum-and-speedball binge after baking too long in the ferocious August sun. Except Tarantino's characters are a bit tame in comparison to some of Dorsey's mangy minions.

Tampa Tribune

Fiercely energetic, outrageously funny...imagine Hunter S. Thompson sharing a byline with Groucho Marx.

New York Times Book Review

Vulgar, violent, and gaudier than sunsets on the Keys, Dorsey's roadshow is some fun.

James W. Hall

A red-line, juking, jiving, manic, tequila-laced, triple-espresso ride through the flipped-out, ultra-scuzzy, bullet-between-the-eyes state of Florida...Wow, what a ride.

Tom Tolworthy

If the pen is mightier than the sword, Carl Hiassen writes with an x-acto knife, and Tim Dorsey writes with a chainsaw. —President of B&N Superstores

Publishers Weekly

This dizzying road movie of a first novel follows a passel of comic con men (and one con woman) down and around the Florida coast. Their adventures involve deliciously caricatured characters along with delirious violence, not to mention pigeon-eating maniacs, cocaine, traffic jams, biker gangs, hot-tub accidents, mock-Satanic heavy metal bands, partially frozen crocodilians, the World Series and the space shuttle. Serge and Coleman are roommates, manic ne'er-do-wells trying to fashion a living from crime and adventure. Sexy Sharon Rhodes murders magnates for their life insurance. On the run after her last hit, she meets Serge and Coleman, and the trio start a crime spree. Former millionaire George Veale has just been released from prison when he absconds with a suitcase of drug money. The cash belongs to insurance CEO Charles Saffron, who hires sleazy private investigator Mo Grenadine to get it back. (Mo is also a corrupt right-wing state legislator and a gay-baiting talk radio host.) Serge and Coleman (themselves remotely connected to drug cartels) get wind of the suitcase and scheme for the cash. Sharon wants in on the caper, too, whether or not the two men planned it that way. Dorsey's cast of dangerous oddballs chase, rob, shoot and kill their way from Tampa to the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas, until their raucous evasion of law catches up with them. Dorsey is a newspaperman by trade (at the Tampa Tribune), and his sentence rhythm can be crisply journalistic: "Wilbur Putzenfus was losing hair on top and working the comb-over. No tan. No tone.... Spiro Agnew without the power." Floridian readers may laugh or wince as Dorsey skewers the state's foibles and stereotypes. But he can abandon his verbal dexterity and his social observation to get a quick laugh or a quick jolt of violence: as a result, his satire seems less serious than it might be. Admirers of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiassen will note their influences here; as entertainment, this rollicking, over-the-top novel is a blast. Agent, Nat Sobel. (Aug.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In this debut, lots of people are after a suitcase full of money that got dropped in the wrong car: two bad guys, one obsessed with Florida history (the setting is Miami) and another with cocaine; one lady, whos also a killer; and the good-guy lawyer. Dorsey is night news coordinator of the Tampa Tribune, so expect good detail.

Publisher's Weekly

This dizzying road movie of a first novel follows a passel of comic con men (and one con woman) down and around the Florida coast. Their adventures involve deliciously caricatured characters along with delirious violence, not to mention pigeon-eating maniacs, cocaine, traffic jams, biker gangs, hot tub accidents, mock-Satanic heavy metal bands, partially frozen crocodilians, the World Series and the space shuttle. Serge and Coleman are roommates, manic ne’er-do-wells trying to fashion a living from crime and adventure. Sexy Sharon Rhodes murders magnates for their life insurance. On the run after her last hit, she meets Serge and Coleman, and the trio start a crime spree. Former millionaire George Veale has just been released from prison when he absconds with a suitcase of drug money. The cash belongs to insurance CEO Charles Saffron, who hires sleazy private investigator Mo Grenadine to get it back. (Mo is also a corrupt right-wing state legislator and gay-baiting talk radio host.) Serge and Coleman (themselves remotely connected to drug cartels) get wind of the suitcase and scheme for the cash. Sharon wants in on the caper, too, whether or not the two men planned it that way. Dorsey’s cast of dangerous oddballs chase, rob, shoot and kill their way from Tampa to the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas, until their raucous evasion of law catches up with them. Dorsey is a newspaperman by trade (at the Tampa Tribune), and his sentence rhythm can be crisply journalistic: “Wilbur Putzenfus was losing hair on top and working the comb- over. No tan. No tone. ... Spiro Agnew without the power.” Floridian readers may laugh or wince as Dorsey skewers the state’s foibles and stereotypes. But he can abandon his verbal dexterity and his social observation to get a quick laugh or a quick jolt of violence: as a result, his satire seems less serious than it might be. Admirers of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen will note their influence here; as entertainment, this rollicking, over-the-top novel is a blast.

Kirkus Reviews

Hilarious set pieces distinguish this otherwise sluggishly plotted contribution to Sunbelt Baroque, the genre epitomized by Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard.