Florida Roadkill (#117) by Tim Dorsey tells the twisted tale of how serial killer with a conscience Serge A. Storms and his sidekick Coleman got their start. This is a Florida series that I think has definitely improved with time as Dorsey has toned down some of the raunch and focused more on Serge's ingenious methods of righting wrongs. (See also my posts on Electric Barracuda 3/22/11, Gator A-Go-Go 5/26/11, and The Stingray Shuffle 6/9/11.) In the later books, a true Florida miracle occurs with the resurrection of Serge's best sidekick, Coleman, who is killed off in Florida Roadkill. It couldn't have happened to a better spaced- out road trip buddy.
As scary as this is to admit, there is a grain of truth to all of Dorsey's criminally-inclined "businessmen" and social climbing outlandish characters. It's enough to make me nervous about driving around in my own town...
The motivating factor for the action in this novel is five million dollars in drug cartel money that has gone astray in the Tampa area, and the race by various factions to be the first to recover the money and spend it before anyone else can. Just for good measure, there are the harmless Floridians who accidentally wander into the plot and muddy the waters even further. Only one ingeniously rigged Serge A. Storms murder in this one; not to say that the body count isn't extremely high despite that.
There are too many threads to this loosely woven plot to tie up neatly at the end of this book, but we're promised that the story will continue in Hammerhead Ranch Motel. I guess that will be my next stop, too.
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