Pineapple Grenade

December 19, 2011
Bestseller Dorsey dishes up his Miami mayhem with a side order of mordant wit in his 15th Serge Storms novel (after 2011’s When Elves Attack). This time, Serge dresses up in a homemade superhero costume (his stoner sidekick, Coleman, is the Human Torch) and designs unique ways to kill the miscreants who blight Florida, like vaporizing their internal organs with liquid nitrogen and a turkey baster. Serge’s other campaign—to get hired as a spy—turns dangerous when it sets two competing but equally corrupt CIA bureaus on his tail, while gunrunning, oil spills, political spin, and a touch of romance complicate the dizzying plot still further. The varied locations—Biscayne Bay’s “Stiltsville” houses, the Charles Deering estate, the airport from which Amelia Earhart’s final flight took off—are real but no less offbeat. Though the book’s formula will be familiar to series fans, neither Dorsey’s fast-paced prose nor his delight in skewering human foolishness has lost its mischievous sparkle. 8-city author tour. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber.

February 1, 2012
Readers and reviewers alike have embraced the inspired lunacy and mayhem of Dorsey's 14 Serge Storms adventures (including Electric Barracuda, 2011), typically giving the author a pass on plot coherence. That's as it should be. Dorsey's hysterical prose cocktails of true Florida lore (and lure); Serge's innovative offings of deserving Florida reprobates; his pal Coleman's epic drug intake; beautiful, dangerous women; a host of unlikely recurring characters who show up wherever Serge happens to land; the psychotic Serge's lack of impulse controlall these factors make plot almost superfluous. But this time we're treated to a semblance of a plot: a plan to assassinate the president of a small Caribbean nation at an international conference in Miami. Serge also falls in love with a beautiful spy who is trying to thwart the assassination. These events force Serge to maintain focus as he battles an ubermiscreant conservative campaign strategist, two bands of crazed CIA agents, a gunrunner, and sundry others. There's still plenty of mayhem and fun, but here's hoping Dorsey stops worrying about plot and gives impulse-control-challenged Serge free rein in his next outing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)