The Riptide Ultra-Glide

Tim Dorsey's latest The Riptide Ultra-Glide (#265) should be a salutary lesson on taking prudent precautions when booking hotels on the internet.  I'm sure Wisconsin couple Pat and Barbara McDougall wish they hadn't relied solely on the picture when they choose their Fort Lauderdale hotel for a much needed vacation.

Bad goes to worse when they find themselves in the middle of a turf war between competing drug dealers over the control of pain clinic prescriptions and Oxycontin.  They're nowhere near the beach, the activity around their motel room is disturbing, to say the least, and their luggage has been taking a cross-country tour courtesy of the airline.  When it finally does arrive, they manage to grab the wrong bag off the baggage carousel, and I do mean the wrong bag!  The crowning touch of their stay comes when serial killer with a conscience Serge A. Storms (with the help of his sidekick Coleman) decides to feature the McDougalls in his own Florida-based reality series.  If they want to cooperate, great, Serge will expose them to Florida history that most tourists and snow birds never see.  If they don't, well - Serge has already taken care of a few problem people littering the landscape on this go round - what's two more?  Funny how we always sympathize with Serge Storm when he chooses his victims...  Meanwhile, Coleman is enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame, and the adulation of the crowds who recognize him where ever they go.  Who knew he would ever take his role as a mentor so seriously?

Tim Dorsey's description of how the pain mill clinics work with the connivance of venal doctors, sometimes in conjunction with faked car accident insurance claims for pain and suffering sound too fantastic to be true.  Trust me, it's like reading the daily paper here in south Florida.  Since he's a journalist, Dorsey doesn't have to go very far to get this material. He does give a nod in The Riptide Ultra-Glide to one of our favorite cable TV series, The Glades.  Worth watching for the quirky Florida atmosphere, and a nice adjunct to Mr. Dorsey's books.