Description
ISBN: 0380732335
Title: Florida Roadkill
Author: Dorsey, Tim
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: HarperCollins, New York
Publication Date: 2000
Edition: First Edition
Book Condition: F
Synopsis: Sunshine State trivia buff Serge A. Storms loves eliminating jerks and pests. His drug-addled partner Coleman loves cartoons. Hot stripper Sharon Rhodes loves cocaine, especially when purchased with rich dead men’s money.
On the other hand, there’s Sean and David, who love fishing and are kind to animals — and who are about to cross paths with a suitcase filled with $5 million in stolen insurance money. Serge wants the suitcase. Sharon wants the suitcase. Coleman wants more drugs . . . and the suitcase. In the meantime, there’s murder by gun, Space Shuttle, Barbie doll, and Levi’s 501s.
In other words, welcome to Tim Dorsey’s Florida — where nobody gets out unscathed and untanned!
Just when you thought the south Florida crime novel was played out and gasping for fresh air, along comes Tim Dorsey to give it a hot spike of pure adrenaline called Florida Roadkill. Think Hunter Thompson leaving Las Vegas and taking Fear and Loathing through the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail. Think Thomas Pynchon on a psychotic break. Think Elmore Leonard mainlining speedballs, or James W. Hall tripping on Ecstasy. Thing Quentin Tarantino whispering in Carl Hiaasen’s ear, You don’t go far enough — out!
This is a wild-at-heart, pinball-machine of a novel, teeming with oddball kooks. crazies and maniacs as they careen through Florida on a kaleidoscopic crime-and-violent-mayhem spree, with stops in Tampa, Palm Beach, Cocoa Beach, Miami Beach, Key West and the Dry Tortugas.
Ultra-sex, mondo-drugs, Satanic rock ‘n’ roll. Lap-dancing coke whores, money-laundering life insurers, ruthless retirement-village scammers. Five million bucks in a suitcase in a suitcase dropped in the trunk of the wrong car, with a whole convoy of homicidal wackos in pursuit – and every damn one of them stops in Miami to take in the last game of the World Series. The dumb bad guy is hooked on cocaine and cartoons; the smart one is obsessed with Sunshine State lore; the babe is a walking wet dream who’s twice as deadly as the men. And get this: There are two good guys, and one of them is a lawyer.
This is Florida in all its decadence, corruption, dysfunction, cupidity, stupidity and bizarro violence. But native Floridian Tim Dorsey still loves his home state – the pure Florida that hasn’t been completely paved over – and he eloquently communicates his abiding passion for its beauty and history.
But mainly, Florida Roadkill is a hyperkinetic, ultraviolent, crazily lyrical and hysterically funny crime fiction with a post-post-modern spin. From murder by Levis 501s to the Running of the Hemingways in Key West, this novel is overdosed, overdriven and over-over-the-top.
