Tim Dorsey was a reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune from 1987 to 1999, and is the author of seventeen other novels: Tiger Shrimp Tango, The Riptide Ultra-Glide, When Elves Attack, Pineapple Grenade, Electric Barracuda, Gator A-Go-Go, Nuclear Jellyfish, Atomic Lobster, Hurricane Punch, The Big Bamboo, Torpedo Juice, Cadillac Beach, The Stingray Shuffle, Triggerfish Twist, Orange Crush, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, and Florida Roadkill. He lives in Tampa, Florida.
Hammerhead Ranch Motel (Serge Storms Series #2)
by Tim Dorsey
eBook
-
ISBN-13:
9780061836725
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication date: 10/13/2009
- Series: Serge Storms Series , #2
- Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 384
- Sales rank: 31,299
- File size: 1 MB
Available on NOOK devices and apps
Want a NOOK? Explore Now
There's a different schemer or slimeball behind every door: cocaine duckpins who have survived only by the dumbest fortune, hard-luck gigolos desperate to score, undercover cops busting undercover cops who are running sting operations on undercover cops. And just down the row, local historian and spree killer Serge A. Storms -- who has stopped keeping up with his meds -- is still looking for a briefcase stuffed with five million dollars...and is now capable of wreaking more havoc than hurricane Rolando-berto, the big wind gathering force offshore, just waiting for the opportunity to blow everything straight to hell.
Pack up your bags and head south to sunny Florida. Leave your rational mind at home and come well armed. There's a room with your number on it at the Hammerhead Ranch Motel.
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
-
- Pineapple Grenade (Serge…
- by Tim Dorsey
-
- Hurricane Punch (Serge Storms…
- by Tim Dorsey
-
- Ten Thousand Islands (Doc Ford…
- by Randy Wayne White
-
- Shark River (Doc Ford Series…
- by Randy Wayne White
-
- Death of a Valentine (Hamish…
- by M. C. Beaton
-
- Dixie City Jam (Dave…
- by James Lee Burke
-
- Double Whammy
- by Carl Hiaasen
-
- Cadillac Jukebox (Dave…
- by James Lee Burke
-
- Hundred-Dollar Baby (Spenser…
- by Robert B. Parker
-
- School Days (Spenser Series…
- by Robert B. Parker
-
- Widow's Walk (Spenser…
- by Robert B. Parker
-
- Skin Tight
- by Carl Hiaasen
-
- Night Vision (Doc Ford Series …
- by Randy Wayne White
-
- Pegasus Descending (Dave…
- by James Lee Burke
-
- New Tricks (Andy Carpenter…
- by David Rosenfelt
-
- Bitterroot (Billy Bob Holland…
- by James Lee Burke
Recently Viewed
The Sun Goes to Your Head
Cocaine smuggling. Spree killing. Don Johnson impersonators. Ethically questionable taxidermy. Teenage sexaholic pothead fugitives. Welcome to Tim Dorsey’s Florida: a kind of criminal fantasyland where the drugs and liquor flow freely in equal measure, the homicides are always spectacular and hilarious, and the far-fetched, far-flung, and far-out coincidences are so much damn fun that you’ll be cursing your own boring reality by the time your stay is up. It is one hell of a place to visit; and if you’re planning to stick around, the Hammerhead Ranch Motel is the only game in town.
Hammerhead Ranch Motel is the title of Dorsey’s follow up to Florida Roadkill, the book that introduced us to Serge A. Storm, probably the most loveable sociopath fiction has ever known. It’s also the name of the beachside establishment on the Gulf Coast outside of Tampa that serves as the eye of this remarkably over-the-top hurricane of a novel. Serge has a room there; he’s camped out as he searches for the five million dollars in stolen drug money that disappeared at the end of Florida Roadkill. All of Tampa’s criminal community is looking, too, and God save the poor fool who winds up getting into the mix. Many do. The action, needless to say, is relentless.
At first it almost seems that Dorsey is too caught up in his own ability to write amusing little vignettes populated by colorful wackos, as in the beginning of the book when we’re introduced to one after another of his crazies in a series of bizarre, unconnected situations. It almost gets tiring. Then the tide turns, and Dorsey’s absurd-yet-ingenious plot machinations begin to reveal themselves. Half of the people he introduces us to he gleefully bumps off, and the survivors get dug deeper into the framework of the story. As the death toll mounts, with each murder or accident more imaginative and appalling than the last, the remaining players -- a truly wild cast of characters connected in a multitude of ways -- converge on Hammerhead Ranch, with a hurricane charging up the coast, for a denouement of mock-biblical proportions.
The novel does have its flaws. With so many characters, it’s often difficult to remember who’s who (is this the friend of the college student who fell through the roof of the aquarium into the alligator tank, or the guy who was misinformed about having one month to live and has decided to kill an obnoxious talk radio personality?), and not all of them ring true as authentic nutjobs. But most do, and we should forgive Dorsey for his, at times, overly enthusiastic method -- not just because he writes some of the funniest sex scenes ever composed in English, but because, goofy as it is, he has produced an astonishingly entertaining book.
--Olli Chanoff
Olli Chanoff is a freelance editor and writer who lives a bicoastal existence.