The Big Bamboo (Serge Storms Series #8) » (Reprint)

Tim Dorsey was a reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune from 1987 to 1999 and is the author of ten previous novels: Florida Roadkill, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, Orange Crush, Triggerfish Twist, The Stingray Shuffle, Cadillac Beach, Torpedo Juice, The Big Bamboo, Hurricane Punch, and Atomic Lobster. He lives in Tampa, Florida.

His marriage plans fizzled, so Floridaphile serial killer Serge A. Storms is on a new mission: to convince the West Coast movie industry bigwigs to do their business in his beloved Sunshine State. So it's off to Tinseltown with his substance-sustained sidekick, Coleman—to schmooze with craven cokehead producers and visiting Yakuza, who are wrestling to salvage the most disastrous big-budget stinkeroo in the history of celluloid . . . and to radically reduce the rampaging population of true Hollywood slimeballs.

Publishers Weekly

Having previously taken on dirty politics and corporate scandal, Dorsey now skewers Hollywood in his eighth over-the-top novel. Serge Storms (who insists he's not a serial killer because he gets no joy out of it; he's just doing his duty) strikes again (Torpedo Juice; Cadillac Beach; etc.) with his strung-out sidekick, Coleman. Serge's new obsession is insisting that his beloved Florida be represented accurately in the movies and he's even taking a crack at writing a screenplay. He and Coleman end up in L.A., where mayhem ensues, most notably the kidnapping and murder of starlet Ally Street. Dorsey's cartoonish characters include the Glick brothers, slimy, coke-snorting owners of Vistamax Studios; ruthless director Werner B. Potemkin, whose over-budget/behind-schedule blockbusters cost people their lives; and unscrupulous agent Tori Gersh, who uses a rape accusation to secure a leading role for her client. Incorporating Ed McMahon and the prize van, Japanese investors and a trip to the Playboy Mansion, Dorsey takes wacky to a new level that readers will either love or hate. The litmus test is whether readers laugh when Serge tells the nursing home mogul he's about to kill that there is good news: "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance." (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.