Rating: 
Summary: Expect some pain in the sides....
Review: The first few chapters seem a little bizaar and once you get a little further into this classic you will probably decide to start the book again just so you can get all the laughs you might have missed the first time around.
Tim Dorsey has not only put together a brilliant mystery/thriller plot that has you toally confused until the end, but he has also got one of the greatest senses of humour I think I have ever seen on paper.
I have never laughed out loud as much as I did when I read this book and when I gave this book to my brother to read I could tell where he was in the book just by the volume of his laugh.
This is one of the funniest and well thought out books I have ever read and would recommend it to anyone that likes a laugh.....
Rating: 
Summary: Pack Your Bags and Head for the Panhandle
Review: The sequel to Florida Roadkill, this book is set during hurricane season on Florida's Gulf Coast. A psychotic spree killer, his yellow journalist sidekick, and an assortment of ex-cons and seedy locals are determined to ride out the storm while taking care of unfinished business inside the Hammerhead Ranch Motel. These eccentric characters make for a funny and entertaining read from Tim Dorsey.
Rating: 
Summary: Silly is not funny
Review: The writing is so trendy-goofy that I kept relishing the point when all the zany antics were going to add up to a novel (Hammerhead Ranch Motel A Novel). They never did. This compilation of slapstick episodes might have been twice or half as long or, and perhaps this is how the book was assembled, cut and pasted in any order. There seems to be no conscience behind the crude jokes. The book gives the raspberry to everyone and everything in the way a juvenile might without consideration. I was attracted by the back cover rave comparing this author to "Carl Hiaasen, James Hall, and Elmore Leonard", but the only similarity I could detect is the Florida setting. This author might share their turf, but is not in their league. He's glib and boring.
Rating: 
Summary: A Little Too Convenient The Way Things Work Out --
Review: This guy can really write some wierd stuff - he creates scenes and characters that are strange and wild enough to impress any screenwriter looking for an a la "Sexy Beast" opening scene - yet it is the story itself that lacks. It is a typical what-is-going-on story that falls together seamlessly at the end. In that sense it is incredibly boring, and very predictable. However, you'll read it quite fast, as there are very few challenging segments to hold you up or, well, make you think. A wild ride, but one without depth or true craft to hold you in.
Rating:
Summary: Fast, wicked, very funny.
Review: This is like a Marx Bros. movie. The characters are wondrfully developed and the plot is crazy/funny. Frorida Roadkill was great and this is equally great. I can't wait for the next Hiassen book or the next Dorsey book. These are "classics".
Rating:
Summary: A hectic storm within a huricane.
Review: This is Tim Dorsey's sequel to Florida Roadkill. Serge Storms is back in this book still chasing the suitcase containing $5 Million in laundered drug-money. Early in the novel Serge gets his hands on the case, just to lose it to car thieves. The case continues to transfer hands until it makes it to the hands of drug-lord Zargozsa. The owner of the Hammerhead Ranch Motel. We follow Serge as he kills his way along the route taken by the case and meets up with zany companions along the way. The plot reaches its climax as the protaganists gather in the bar of the Hammerhead Ranch to wait out a hurricane and see who will end up with the cash.
Rating:
Summary: A Rollercoaster on Steroids
Review: This whole series of books by Tim Dorsey can be described as a twisted and funny study on the dark side in all of human beings. Tim Dorsey manages to take everyday situations and make them incredibly funny. Based in Florida, the series follows the twisted life of Serge Storms (one of the best characters ever created) and all his sick, violent and disturbed adventures. Of course, along the way you will get to meet every kind of character you can imagine.
The interesting thing about this series is that behind all the funny stories, there are tons of social and political criticisms. I have read all the books in the series, and each one keeps getting better. If you are a fan of Quentin Tarantino movies, or South Park cartoons, you will love these books. A must buy.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent two/three day yarn
Review: Tim Dorsey snatches characters from every corner of the southeast and lets them loose in this groovy, page-turning dark comedy. Tarantino and Coen Bros. lovers will enjoy following Serge throughout Florida's not so sunny side. Why fours stars and not five? Dorsey's got style. He has the ability to keep a multi-faceted story moving without cluttering the reader's mental notes. However, many characters are introduced and wiped out within the confines of one chapter--often less than a dozen pages! Character development, therefore, is slightly degraded. This obviously works to his advantage, for his faithful readers will surely be standing outside the doors of their local bookstores (or online!) waiting to delve into the pages of this continuing saga. Bottom line: an excellent book for a weekend in your overgrown backyard, by the lake killed off by acid rain, or in your favorite pizza stained recliner. Borrow the hardcover from a friend; save your money for the paperback.
Rating:
Summary: More Hit-and-Miss than "Florida Roadkill," but Still a Hit
Review: Tim Dorsey's second novel picks up roughly an hour after his first, "Florida Roadkill," ends. The briefcase with $5 million in cocaine money is still lodged in the tire well of an unsuspecting innocent driver, and a spree killer named Serge Storms is still chasing it. Unlike the original novel, the sprawling cast of characters all quickly gravitate to a single location -- the unlikely crime novel setting of Tampa, Florida. Here Dorsey, a former journalist for the Tampa Tribune, mixes together criminals with aspirations, permanently pissed-off retirees, another radio shock jock (after having killed off his first one in "Florida Roadkill"), a Don Johnson imitator, a pair of Alabama Piggly Wiggly clerks on the run, a passive-aggressive private detective, an Earnest Hemmingway look a like and more. The action is much more manic this time around, almost slapstick at times, with villains who are more comic than threatening. Although there are a number of deaths, most of them border on slapstick, and not always successfully. (Murder by taxidermy probably sounded more interesting than it actually turns out to be.) In a similar vein, Dorsey begins rolling out joke name after joke name, some of them fairly mild and obscure, others that are
true groaners. On the other hand, the sense of place he evokes with Tampa is extremely well-done, and handled with a light touch, by focusing on a few key details rather than long essays on the character of the city, as previous generations of crime writers were wont to do. And Dorsey is extremely conscious of those who have come before, once again referencing other Florida crime writers both obliquely (a tourist reading Carl Hiaasen's novel "Skin Tight") and overtly, with the climax of the story being punctuated
with clips from the Bogart/Bacall angsters-trapped-in-a-hurricane movie, "Key Largo." The title location, a seedy motel in a community turning into a standard Tampa retirement community, works especially well, with Dorsey describing the dingy rooms in clear (if somewhat off-putting) key details, and using the location to good effect, with natural reasons for the motley cast to all end up at the location by the end. While somewhat hit and miss compared to his original novel or the works of Hiaasen, whose coattails his marketing has been designed to help him ride, "Hammerhead Ranch Motel" is still a recommended read for fans of his first novel or the works of Hiaasen.
Rating:
Summary: I Want More
Review: Well, Dorsey did it again! He wrote a novel that made the kids wait for their dinner. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. I'd fall asleep holding it, only to awaken, pick it up, and start reading again! Tim weaves a tale that hosts characters that I swear I know. Their madcap adventures which trail up and down the Florida interstates and sideroads have kept me laughing time and time again. With each new read, I discover something about each of them I didn't know. Dorsey definitely paints characters who ARE characters. I also recommend reading Florida Roadkill before sinking into Hammerhead Ranch Motel. Although you'll get to know each character at the Ranch, you'll feel like you've met up with old friends if you've read Roadkill first. I can't wait for Orange Crush. I'm definitely a Dorsey fan. He takes me away from my safe, mundane Floridian existence and immerses me in a darker side of Sunshine that entertains. Thanks, Tim!
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