Tag: st. petersburg times

Tim Dorsey’s “Gator a-go-go”

January 25th, 2010

Florida-obsessed serial killer Serge and his addled pal Coleman are back to help the innocent and punish wrongdoers — or just those guilty of violating Serge’s unique code of behavioral ethics — in “Gator a-go-go,” the 12th piece of comic crime fiction from Tim Dorsey.

The Tampa author is an old Tampa Tribune colleague of mine. I reviewed his latest novel for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Click here to go to the story at the Herald-Trib site, or read the full text below.

Tim is making appearances all over Florida — including this Thursday at Inkwood Books and Friday at Skipper’s Smokehouse — to kick off his national book tour. For all the details, click here.

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Gator a-go-go
By Tim Dorsey
William Morrow, 352 pages ($24.99)

Breeze through enough of Tim Dorsey’s wacky serial-killer novels, and, if you have even a little Florida sand in your shoes, sooner or later you’re likely to come across a favorite locale. And you might even pick up a long-forgotten historical fact along with the funny if pointedly farfetched crime fiction, which the Tampa author has cranked out at the rate of about one novel a year since his debut, “Florida Roadkill,” was published in 1999.

Southwest Florida gets a nod or two in “Gator a-go-go,” 12th in the series of books following the misadventures of Serge A. Storms, a coldblooded murderer with a soft spot for all things Sunshine State. Early on, there’s a bit of nasty action in and around a Boston Red Sox spring training game in Fort Myers. Late in the fast-moving story, film noir-loving detective Mahoney, a recurring character in the series, shows up in Anna Maria, the laidback, beautiful island community where Dorsey is known to hole up on occasion.

There, Mahoney, dressed in a worn fedora and tweed coat, visits the ramshackle Rod and Reel Pier, with its tiny, homey bar on the first level topped by a restaurant boasting great views of the Sunshine Skyway, accompanied by rather ordinary food and service. And Dorsey throws in a factoid for free: “…from the tiny pier, just a few swimming yards from shore, on June 28, 1975, a then-record 1,386-pound hammerhead shark was landed. The jaws used to hang on a plaque in the bar, but now they’re at a museum up the street.”

The brief Anna Maria sequence is just a detour in the plot, mostly set in the state’s spring break destinations — recent hot spot Panama Beach, Daytona Beach, and Fort Lauderdale, where northern college kids began coming by the hundreds of thousands after the release of 1960 beach-party comedy Where the Boys Are.

Trim but tough teetotaller Serge and his oversized booze- and pot-addled pal Coleman are travelling to all three tourist towns in order to make a documentary on spring break. The former is handling the feature-film footage, while the latter is assigned to the behind-the-scenes material destined for the eventual DVD release.

Along the way, they pick up a pair of sexy, fast-living old friends named City and Country, and use ingenious fatal contraptions to punish various folks unfortunate enough to bump against one or more of Serge’s pet peeves — drivers who fail to yield to emergency vehicles, lowlifes who prey on innocent tourists, and “Girls Gone Wild” types who take advantage of drunken college students.

It’s not just the usual comic mayhem this time, though. In addition to hanging out with an admiring posse of college kids, some enamoured with Coleman’s 1001 ways to more efficiently get trashed, Serge wanders into a sticky conflict: a 19-year-old boy in a witness protection is endangered by a sort-of Latinized version of Ma Barker’s gang, and a mole in law enforcement is sabotaging efforts to keep the kid safe.

As per usual in Dorsey’s books, the action is spiked with snippets of Florida history — pop culture and otherwise. It’s difficult to resist a crime story that makes references to Tom Petty, Ken Kesey, Elvis and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, too. Did I mention the quartet of nonagenarian granny bikers?

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Other reviews of “Gator a-go-go”

Tampa Tribune (Kevin Walker)

St. Petersburg Times (Colette Bancroft)

Official site (HarperCollins)
Tim Dorsey: Road Warrior, Brand Builder; and Casting Serge and Coleman?

February 26th, 2009

Not long after Tim Dorsey’s first book, Florida Roadkill, was published in 1999, I interviewed the Tampa writer for a piece published in The Orlando Weekly (as soon as I can track that down, I’ll link to it here).

We met at the Old Meeting House on South Howard Avenue. There, Tim, a former colleague at the Tampa Tribune, where he had last worked as that paper’s night metro editor, told me about his approach to gathering an audience for his work.

First, write page-turning books (he didn’t say that in so many words). Second, build a brand (he did say something like that).

Tim’s plan, in addition to continuing his extensive first-hand research on all things Florida and applying the seat of his pants to the chair in the office of his South Tampa home, was to directly connect with his readers.

As a result, loyal followers would be eager to buy the next “Tim Dorsey book” regardless of title, plot or reviews.

He’s accomplished exactly that, gathering a large following of fans via endless rounds of appearances and signings at bookstores, writers conferences and other venues, and a vital web presence at TimDorsey.com.

Tim has even been a guest speaker at academic conferences – I heard him talk to a group of college profs a couple of years ago, when the annual FCEA (Florida College English Association) meeting was held at Florida Southern College in Lakeland. At that particular conference, I gave a paper on Harry Crews.

Tim talks about Nuclear Jellyfish, his recently published 11th book in a decade, in a story written by UF journalism prof William McKeen and published in this week’s Creative Loafing.

Read the CL story here. And click here to read my review, originally published Jan. 25 in the St. Petersburg Times.

Since this blog focuses on books AND movies, a question or two for Tim (perhaps I’ll ask him, next time I bump into him):

What’s the latest on Hollywood’s interest in your books?

And who would be in your dream cast, particularly when it comes to Serge and Coleman?

Serge strikes me as someone who’s not necessarily physically imposing. He’s wildly eccentric (an understatement), a tough but smart guy, an autodidact who has been around the block a time or 100. He can be mean and hell, and funny, too, even if only by accident.

Ben Kingsley is a little bit of all of that in the underappreciated Sexy Beast (2000). And anyone who doesn’t believe that Sir Ben can rock it extremely silly ought to see The Love Guru. No, don’t see the entire awful movie, just the sequences featuring Kingsley.

Mickey Rourke could do something interesting with the role, too, as could his pal Eric Roberts, and maybe even Bruce Willis.

And for the pot-addled dangerous goof Coleman? How about Owen Wilson, or Woody Harrelson, or, for someone younger, maybe Seth Rogen?
Rocky Mountain News To Shut Down Friday

February 26th, 2009

The news about journalism just gets more and more distressing.

Now this: The final edition of the Rocky Mountain News, a 150-year-old (!) daily newspaper, will be published this Friday.

Scripps, the owner of the paper, Colorado’s oldest, wasn’t able to find a buyer.

More than 200 newsroom staffers will be let go, although they will remain on the payroll through April 28.

For all the details, check out the story in the Denver Post – still standing, so far. Here’s the Wall Street Journal story, and here’s the Rocky Mountain News’ own piece.

The two papers had established a joint operating agreement in 2001, as a last-ditch effort to cut costs and keep both alive.

As pointed out in the Post story, penned by Steve Raabe, only about 10 U.S. cities — including New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and Seattle — are still home to more than one major daily newspaper cities.

That list, as of today, still includes the Tampa Bay area, home to the St. Petersburg Times, for which I’ve freelanced since 1999, and the Tampa Tribune, where I was the pop music critic for 8 years ending in 1996.

Here’s wishing and hoping that the News’ writers and editors — and those at endangered papers in San Francisco, Seattle and Tucson — will find gainful employment, sooner rather than later.

Tag: st. petersburg times

Tim Dorsey’s “Gator a-go-go”

Tim Dorsey: Road Warrior, Brand Builder; and Casting Serge and Coleman?

Rocky Mountain News To Shut Down Friday