[.ca] Hammerhead Ranch Motel (ISBN 2743614250)

From Amazon.com:
Penzler Pick, August 2000: Is it Florida, or is it the mystery writers who set their stories there? There seems to be a tradition of Florida noir that is as loony as that name implies. Tim Dorsey is the newest writer from the Sunshine State whose stories are inhabited by a cast of characters who, in any other state, would probably be behind bars. In Dorsey's world, not only are they roaming free, they are also wreaking havoc with impunity up and down the peninsula. In his first book, Florida Roadkill, Dorsey introduced us to several characters who are still at large as his second story begins. Serge A. Storms is a spree killer and Florida history buff, still looking for the five million dollars that's stashed in the trunk of a Chrysler--unbeknownst to the driver--somewhere in the state. Johnny Vegas is a playboy who, because catastrophic events always seem to get in the way, has yet to lose his virginity. Also along for the zany ride is 90-year-old Mrs. Edna Ploomfield, who blows away a man delivering her flowers and chocolates; a DJ who changed his name legally to Boris the Hateful Piece of BLEEP so that he would not be BLEEPED on the air every time he used the name; and Safety Officer Chester "Porkchop" Dole who watches the monitors on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Along with a dancing Chihuahua who forecasts the weather, the Diaz Boys, Harvey Fiddlebottom, undercover cops, and a variety of oddballs, they will congregate in or around the seediest place never to have been shut down, the Hammerhead Ranch Motel on the Gulf of Mexico. There, they will play out their lunacy as Hurricane Rolando-berto bears down on them. This is a wonderful summertime read, relentlessly funny and impossible to put down. --Otto Penzler

You'll howl with laughter!:
Let's be honest: As fascinating as author Tim Dorsey's characters are, as twisted, as brilliant, they all come out of his obviously fascinating, obviously twisted, obviously brilliant mind. HAMMERHEAD RANCH MOTEL is the sequel to FLORIDA ROADKILL. It may not be quite as hilarious as "Roadkill," but it remains howlingly funny. Part of the treat is seeing where Dorsey takes the reader next. The hero (or, perhaps, anti-hero) must be the most lovable psychopathic serial killer in history, a man with a vast store of knowledge (rivaling only the author's) and a highly developed sense of justice. There is a scene with this hero and a psychiatrist that is one of the most wonderfully manic things I ever have read. I can't wait to zip through all of Dorsey's other Florida-based thrillers!

Silly is not funny:
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.

More Hit-and-Miss than "Florida Roadkill," but Still a Hit:
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.

Correction:
The book's great. Read it at once. This is just a correction to a previous reviewer's comment, namely, that Dorsey & Hiaasen write for "neighboring" newspapers. Not true. Dorsey wrote for the Tampa Tribune, in west central Florida, near the Gulf of Mexico. Hiaasen writes (wrote?) for the Miami Herald, on the lower east coast of Florida, by the Atlantic Ocean. It's about a 4-5 hour drive from one city to the other, and they are noticeably different places. Still, it's true that Florida is one big freakshow.

A hectic storm within a huricane.:
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.