Rating: 
Summary: It doesn't get any wilder than this!
Review: Whatever Carl Hiaasen is drinking, Tim Dorey has stolen the receipe and improved it. Perhaps he let's the cat out of the bag before the story even starts as to his motivation by using a quote from Mark Twain: "Let us consider that we are all partialy insane. It will explain us to each other." It certainly explains the wild and crazy characters in this book. They have been more than adequately detailed in the other reviews here, but suffice it to say you are not likely to run into them in your local Grand Union or Safeway store. However, if you are looking for a chance to give your brain a rest and your funny bone a work out, the trip through this book is well worth taking. I love these nutty books that are about Florida. It's probably why we have a winter home in Arizona.
Rating:
Summary: Dude - Have You Tried Decaf?
Review: Wow - what a crazy, zany, ride! Like Carl Hiaasen and Dave Berry, Tim Dorsey writes of modern day Florida, a state whose wacky inhabitants offer more than enough grist to feed the mills of at least that many talented writers. But Dorsey's Florida is a step or two beyond Hiaasen - more cynical, reckless, even suicidal - perhaps what Hiaasen would write during a week-long amphetamine binge.
"Hammerhead Ranch Motel" is less a plot than a series of vignettes, as each character passing by or through the bizarre Hammerhead Ranch Motel (think Texas'Cadillac Ranch with stuffed Hammerhead sharks instead of Cadillacs) is even aberrant than the one before. Back from Dorsey's "Florida Roadkill" debut is Serge Storm, who is living proof that only in the pages of a Dorsey novel can a serial killer be the likeable hero(well, as likeable as a guy who conducts taxidemy on live humans can be). This is a book that defies definition by traditional standards, an "evenly pace" experience as long as "pace" exists in the spectrum reaching from light speed to ludicrous. Aside from Florida's typical delights of forest fires, hurricanes, murder, and mayhem, there is a Buick with $5-million in the trunk cruising around Florida's freeways. If you don't have much of a life planned for the next several hours, go ahead and pick up ""Hammerhead" - it will be a ride you'll remember for a while.
Rating: 
Summary: Like a moth tied to a bottle rocket.
Review: You have to hand it to Tim Dorsey, he's funny and creative. That, and the nervous, almost amphetamine quickness of the plot, are the only things I enjoyed about this novel.In it, we meet two stoned nymphomaniacs; a DJ with the personality of Jabba the Hutt; inept law enforcement officers from a bridge patrolman to undercover FBI; a dog passing for a meteorologist; and a thoroughly insane traveler who has recently stopped keeping track of his meds. It reads that way, too, like a neon-colored collage of misfits crossing paths nearly at random like mosquitoes splatting on windshields. I could see how someone would enjoy this type of read, perhaps if stoned, but it wasn't for me.
Rating:
Summary: Citrus Cynicism
Review: Zany is the word that best describes this very witty author's commentary on current Florida culture. Farcical Floridian has become a literary genre of late and Tim Dorsey has been compared to two of its masters: Carl Hiaasen and Laurence Shames. A valid comparison as to the geography of their work. Dorsey shares with Hiaasen a background in journalism (both having written for metropolitan papers in the Sunshine State) and each appears to have a huge collection of Floridian absurdities accumulated over the years. Shames, an artistic writer who ritually uses Key West as his backdrop, writes romantic mystery novellas with a proven formula: boy or girl seeking love gets in trouble along the way and we (the reading audience) are entertained as he or she tries to find her way out. Hiaasen is a social iconoclast of the likes of H. L. Menken and amuses us by poking fun at the greed, excesses and moral weakness of our society as played out near the tropic of cancer. Dorsey reminds one of Lenny Bruce with a pen. This is a very funny book. In a loosely connected story line, with sub-plots popping up all over the Florida peninsula, from the panhandle to Key West, Dorsey treats to punch-line-prose that brings about a chuckle on almost every page. Characters are brought together the way comedians were in the classic film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World. This is certainly not literature, but for a fun, light read it is as funny and quick as can be. Take it to the beach or read it on a plane.
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