Clownfish Blues

November 28, 2016
Serge A. Storms and his stoner buddy, Coleman, take a mayhem-filled trip through Florida in bestseller Dorsey’s wild 20th novel starring the vigilante serial killer (after 2016’s Coconut Cowboy). Serge and Coleman are moving from town to town, getting a new job each week and causing havoc wherever they go. They try worm-grunting (a method for driving earthworms to the surface) in Apalachicola and sign-spinning (holding up ads on the highway) on the Gold Coast. Meanwhile, Serge devises inspired punishments for a couple of zany reality-show nuts, a show-off in a red Porsche, and a caregiver taking advantage of his elderly patient. The funniest extended scene involves Serge and Coleman impersonating hostage negotiators while an alphabet soup of agencies try to figure them out. This entry may not rank with Dorsey’s best, but readers will find plenty of sharp cultural commentary (“The sidewalks were thick with street crazies talking to themselves, and executives with Bluetooths talking to themselves”). Eight-city author tour. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber.

September 1, 2016
As he's shooting an homage to the classic Route 66 TV series (filmed partly in Florida), lovable Sunshine State maniac Serge A. Storms contends with money-laundering drug cartels, bent bodega owners, and weasely venture capitalists all trying to game the state lottery system. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2017
If you haven't alreadyand if not, why not?met Serge A. Storms, Florida's most rabid history fan and most cheerful serial killer, now is the time. Serge prefers the term sequential killer, because serial killers always plan to kill again while sequential killers just keep finding themselves in situations where justice must be meted out. With his longtime sidekick, the perpetually drug-addled Coleman, Serge is ricocheting around the state, re-creating episodes of the classic TV series Route 66. Along the way, he rescues, with extreme prejudice, an elderly woman from a shady assisted-living caretaker; learns all about worm grunting (a real thing); becomes a fake hostage negotiator; and helps a psychic rid herself of her ex-husband. Serge Storms is, hands down, one of the most original and just-plain-captivating characters in modern crime fiction: a brilliant, creative, manic-depressive killer who bounces from one episode to another, with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a new puppy experiencing everything in the world for the very first time. The books are hilarious, too, with razor-sharp dialogue and off-the-wall plots and set pieces (Serge is, shall we say, a very meticulous sequential killer).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)