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The Big Bamboo (Serge Storms Series #8) by Tim Dorsey — book cover

The Big Bamboo (Serge Storms Series #8)

by Tim Dorsey
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Overview

His marriage plans fizzled, so Floridaphile serial killer Serge A. Storms is on a new mission: to convince the West Coast movie industry bigwigs to do their business in his beloved Sunshine State. So it's off to Tinseltown with his substance-sustained sidekick, Coleman—to schmooze with craven cokehead producers and visiting Yakuza, who are wrestling to salvage the most disastrous big-budget stinkeroo in the history of celluloid . . . and to radically reduce the rampaging population of true Hollywood slimeballs.

Synopsis

His marriage plans fizzled, so Floridaphile serial killer Serge A. Storms is on a new mission: to convince the West Coast movie industry bigwigs to do their business in his beloved Sunshine State. So it's off to Tinseltown with his substance-sustained sidekick, Coleman—to schmooze with craven cokehead producers and visiting Yakuza, who are wrestling to salvage the most disastrous big-budget stinkeroo in the history of celluloid . . . and to radically reduce the rampaging population of true Hollywood slimeballs.

Publishers Weekly

Having previously taken on dirty politics and corporate scandal, Dorsey now skewers Hollywood in his eighth over-the-top novel. Serge Storms (who insists he's not a serial killer because he gets no joy out of it; he's just doing his duty) strikes again (Torpedo Juice; Cadillac Beach; etc.) with his strung-out sidekick, Coleman. Serge's new obsession is insisting that his beloved Florida be represented accurately in the movies and he's even taking a crack at writing a screenplay. He and Coleman end up in L.A., where mayhem ensues, most notably the kidnapping and murder of starlet Ally Street. Dorsey's cartoonish characters include the Glick brothers, slimy, coke-snorting owners of Vistamax Studios; ruthless director Werner B. Potemkin, whose over-budget/behind-schedule blockbusters cost people their lives; and unscrupulous agent Tori Gersh, who uses a rape accusation to secure a leading role for her client. Incorporating Ed McMahon and the prize van, Japanese investors and a trip to the Playboy Mansion, Dorsey takes wacky to a new level that readers will either love or hate. The litmus test is whether readers laugh when Serge tells the nursing home mogul he's about to kill that there is good news: "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance." (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Tim Dorsey

Tim Dorsey was a reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune from 1987 to 1999 and is the author of ten previous novels: Florida Roadkill, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, Orange Crush, Triggerfish Twist, The Stingray Shuffle, Cadillac Beach, Torpedo Juice, The Big Bamboo, Hurricane Punch, and Atomic Lobster. He lives in Tampa, Florida.

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Editorials

Cox News Service

"If you thought Tim Dorsey couldn’t get any wilder, think again...The Big Bamboo is the Armageddon of wackiness."

Publishers Weekly

Having previously taken on dirty politics and corporate scandal, Dorsey now skewers Hollywood in his eighth over-the-top novel. Serge Storms (who insists he's not a serial killer because he gets no joy out of it; he's just doing his duty) strikes again (Torpedo Juice; Cadillac Beach; etc.) with his strung-out sidekick, Coleman. Serge's new obsession is insisting that his beloved Florida be represented accurately in the movies and he's even taking a crack at writing a screenplay. He and Coleman end up in L.A., where mayhem ensues, most notably the kidnapping and murder of starlet Ally Street. Dorsey's cartoonish characters include the Glick brothers, slimy, coke-snorting owners of Vistamax Studios; ruthless director Werner B. Potemkin, whose over-budget/behind-schedule blockbusters cost people their lives; and unscrupulous agent Tori Gersh, who uses a rape accusation to secure a leading role for her client. Incorporating Ed McMahon and the prize van, Japanese investors and a trip to the Playboy Mansion, Dorsey takes wacky to a new level that readers will either love or hate. The litmus test is whether readers laugh when Serge tells the nursing home mogul he's about to kill that there is good news: "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance." (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The Big Bamboo is an actual cocktail lounge in Kissimmee, FL, that serves as a hangout for killer/conman Serge Storms and his disreputable friends, including dope-addicted sidekick Coleman. Yet most of the action in this eighth book (after Torpedo Juice) to feature hyper-lunatic Serge takes place in L.A., where Serge is hired to kidnap actress Ally Street. Because the book is a lampoon of everyone's worst impressions of Hollywood, it has a kind of slapstick humor that will keep readers grinning from the first page. The laugh riot really takes off when Serge puts a nylon stocking over his face, makes a film commentary, and sends it to a television news station as a kind of offbeat ransom note. This book has everything you'd ever want in a sleazy Hollywood B movie-immoral studio owners, high-maintenance actresses, the party that never stops, little guys trying to get their big break in film, the Yakuza, the Alabama mafia, freeway driving, and a big Hollywood finish on a movie set where all the forces finally come together. Howlingly funny! Rated R for language and adult situations. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/05.]-Ken St. Andre, Phoenix P.L. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Just because Florida fanatic Serge A. Storms (Cadillac Beach, 2004, etc.) is crazy doesn't mean he's stupid, as he deftly demonstrates in Dorsey's latest romp. Vistamax is in deep doo-doo, as even Mel and Ian Glick, the coked-up twin brothers who run the studio, acknowledge. Their annual prestige production, All That Glitters, is a bazillion dollars overbudget, and director Werner B. Potemkin is demanding daily rewrites, the latest of which combines the attack on the Death Star with the parting of the Red Sea. Agent Tori Gersh is threatening to put the kibosh on the brothers' hobby of raping starlets unless they put Ally Street, her client and their latest conquest, in a leading role. But before you can say "Print it!," Ally disappears after a chat with Ford Oelman, a Vistamax prop man the Glick brothers fire after stealing his script. The property in question is a caper based on the Alabama scam run by Sergio Storms, granddad of none other than little Serge, who's come out West to explain to the film industry why films about Florida shouldn't be shot in Coronado. Of course, with Serge at the helm, quite a few other things get shot, as well as nail-gunned and slammed in car trunks, as he whips up a climax even Potemkin couldn't have anticipated. Less manic but more devious than previous outings, Dorsey's latest makes his freewheeling hero a bi-coastal phenomenon.

Book Details

Published
March 1, 2007
Publisher
HarperCollins Publishers
Pages
400
Format
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN
9780060585631

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