Hammerhead Ranch Motel (Serge Storms Series #2)

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More About This Book

Overview

The rabid fans of Florida Roadkill have been clamoring for answers: What happened to the hyperactive spree killer and fanatical Florida folklorist Serge A. Stormes and that $5 million in laundered drug cash? Now they can check into the sleazy Hammerhead Ranch Motel to find out.

One of the last old beach motels in the path of an advancing column of flistening new condominiums marching up the Gulf Coast shoreline, Hammerhead Ranch has a budget price and charming deterioration that make it a magnet for colorful clientele with seedy baggage. It's here where all the players ultimately converge—along with the elusive (some say cursed) Haliburton with the $5 million—for a final showdown during a killer hurricane. Add a dancing television weather dog, a shotgun-totin' grandma, two sex-and-drug-crazed coeds on the lam, a crew of storm-jumpers straight out of Airplane, and assorted other Floridian flotsam and the result is Dorsey's next great blockbuster.

About the Author:

Tim Dorsey is the Tampa Tribune's night editor and night news coordinator. He lives in Tampa, FL.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
Our Review
The Sun Goes to Your Head
Cocaine smuggling. Spree killing. Don Johnson impersonators. Ethically questionable taxidermy. Teenage sexaholic pothead fugitives. Welcome to Tim Dorsey’s Florida: a kind of criminal fantasyland where the drugs and liquor flow freely in equal measure, the homicides are always spectacular and hilarious, and the far-fetched, far-flung, and far-out coincidences are so much damn fun that you’ll be cursing your own boring reality by the time your stay is up. It is one hell of a place to visit; and if you’re planning to stick around, the Hammerhead Ranch Motel is the only game in town.

Hammerhead Ranch Motel is the title of Dorsey’s follow up to Florida Roadkill, the book that introduced us to Serge A. Storm, probably the most loveable sociopath fiction has ever known. It’s also the name of the beachside establishment on the Gulf Coast outside of Tampa that serves as the eye of this remarkably over-the-top hurricane of a novel. Serge has a room there; he’s camped out as he searches for the five million dollars in stolen drug money that disappeared at the end of Florida Roadkill. All of Tampa’s criminal community is looking, too, and God save the poor fool who winds up getting into the mix. Many do. The action, needless to say, is relentless.

At first it almost seems that Dorsey is too caught up in his own ability to write amusing little vignettes populated by colorful wackos, as in the beginning of the book when we’re introduced to one after another of his crazies in a series of bizarre, unconnected situations. It almost gets tiring. Then the tide turns, and Dorsey’s absurd-yet-ingenious plot machinations begin to reveal themselves. Half of the people he introduces us to he gleefully bumps off, and the survivors get dug deeper into the framework of the story. As the death toll mounts, with each murder or accident more imaginative and appalling than the last, the remaining players -- a truly wild cast of characters connected in a multitude of ways -- converge on Hammerhead Ranch, with a hurricane charging up the coast, for a denouement of mock-biblical proportions.

The novel does have its flaws. With so many characters, it’s often difficult to remember who’s who (is this the friend of the college student who fell through the roof of the aquarium into the alligator tank, or the guy who was misinformed about having one month to live and has decided to kill an obnoxious talk radio personality?), and not all of them ring true as authentic nutjobs. But most do, and we should forgive Dorsey for his, at times, overly enthusiastic method -- not just because he writes some of the funniest sex scenes ever composed in English, but because, goofy as it is, he has produced an astonishingly entertaining book.

--Olli Chanoff

Olli Chanoff is a freelance editor and writer who lives a bicoastal existence.

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction
Fans of Florida Roadkill will welcome this sequel; complete with the original cast of crazies, and introducing a fresh new crop of dopers, dealers, and other assorted dementos.
More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
From The Critics
Dorsey hit the ball out of the park with his debut novel, Florida Roadkill. Now he has encored with the equally wild, wicked and wonderful Hammerhead Ranch Motel.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780380732340
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 5/28/2001
  • Format: Mass Market Paperback
  • Edition description: Reissue
  • Pages: 384
  • Sales rank: 94,730
  • Series: Serge Storms Series, #2
  • Product dimensions: 4.18 (w) x 6.75 (h) x 0.96 (d)

Meet the Author

Tim Dorsey
Tim Dorsey

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.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One



Lone headlights appeared in the blackness five miles away.

They were high-beams, illuminating the sea mist through the slashed mangroves and crushed coral down the long, straight causeway toward Miami. The rumble of rubber on tar grew louder and the headlights became brighter until they blinded. The Buick blew by at ninety and kept going, red taillights fading down U.S. 1 toward Key West.

It was quiet and dark again. An island in the middle of the Florida Keys. No streetlights, no light at all. The low pink building on the south side of the street was unremarkable concrete except for the hastily stuccoed bullet holes and the eight-foot cement conch shell on the shoulder of the road, chipped and peeling, holding up a sign: "Rooms $29.95 and up."

No cars in front of the motel; the night manager nodding in the office. The beach was sandy, some broken plastic kiddie toys, an unsafe pier and a scuttled dinghy. The air was still by the road, but around back a steady breeze came off the ocean. Coconut palms rustled and waves rolled in quietly from the Gulf Stream. Parked behind the motel, by the only room with a light on, was a black Mercedes limousine.

Voices and an electrical hum came from the room, number seven. Inside, personal effects covered one of the beds — toiletries, carefully rolled socks, newspaper clippings, sunscreen, postcards,snacks, ammunition-meticulously arranged in rows and columns. The hum was from the Magic Fingers bed jiggler that had been hot-wired to run continuously. The voices came from the TV that had been unbolted from its wall mount and now sat on a chair facing into the bathroom, tuned toSportscenter.

In the flickering blue-gray TV light, a figure sat in the bathtub behind an open Miami Herald. Two sets of fingers held the sides of the paper — a front-page splash about a drug shoot-out in Key West and a missing five million in cash —and smoke rose from behind the paper. An old electric fan sat on the closed toilet lid, blowing into the tub. Something about the Miami Dolphins came on ESPN. The man in the tub folded the paper and put it on the toilet tank. He grabbed the remote control sitting in the soap dish on the shower wall. The slot in the top of the soap dish held a .38 revolver by the snub nose. "Nobody messes with Johnny Rocco," said the man in the tub, and he pressed the volume button.

The bather was tan, tall and lean with violating ice-blue eyes, and his hair was military-short with flecks of gray. He was in his late thirties and wore a new Tampa Bay Buccaneers baseball cap. In his mouth was a huge cigar, and he took it out with one hand and picked up an Egg McMuffin with the other. He checked his watch. Top of the hour. He clicked the remote control with the McMuffin hand and surfed over to CNN for two minutes, to make sure nothing had broken out in the world that would demand his response, and then over to A&E and the biography of Burt Reynolds for background noise while he read the Herald editorials. He put the McMuffin down on the rim of the tub and picked up the cup of orange juice. On TV, Burt made a long football run for Florida State in a vintage film of a forgotten Auburn game. The tub's edge also held jelly doughnuts, breakfast fajitas and a scrambled egg/sausage breakfast in a preformed plastic tray. On the toilet lid, next to the fan, was a hardcover book from 1939, the WPA guide to Florida. Inside the cover, the man had written his name. Serge A. Storms.

Like now, Serge was usually naked when he was in a motel, but it wasn't sexual. Serge thought clothes were inefficient and uncomfortable; they restricted his movements, and his skin wanted to breathe. Nudity also cut down on changing time, since he was constantly in and out of the shower, subjecting himself to rapid temperature changes, alternating hot and cold water rushes that reminded him he was alive and cleaned out the pores to keep that skin breathing, feeling new.

Serge hesitated a second in the tub, mid-bite in the McMuffin. He couldn't think of what to do next, not even something as simple as chewing. Too many ideas raged at once in his head, and his brain gridlocked. He was paralyzed. Then the congestion slowly unclogged and he resumed chewing. When he realized he could move his arms again, he reached on top of the toilet tank for a prescription bottle. He shook it, but it made no sound, and he tossed the empty in the waste can beside the sink, a bank shot off the ceramic seashell tiles. Hell with it, he thought, I'll go natural. If it gets too strange, I'll run to a drug hole and score some Elavil that crackheads use to come down after four days on the ledge. Serge had started feeling the effects of not keeping up with his psychiatric medication.

And he liked it.

He got out of the tub and opened the back door of the motel room and walked out under a coconut palm. The breeze dried the sweat cold on his skin. He looked up into the nexus of palm fronds and coconuts set against the Big Dipper and a sky of brilliant stars over the water, away from the light pollution of the mainland. Serge said: "There's a big blow a-comin'."

Serge went back inside and slept all day in the motel tub, and his skin shriveled. Two hours before sunset, there was a loud beeping sound in room seven. Serge awoke in alarm and splashed around as if he'd discovered a cottonmouth in the water.He jumped from the tub and into his pants without toweling off.The beeping sound came from a metal box on the dresser, an antitheft car-tracking device.Serge threw on a shirt and packed a travel bag in seconds.He didn't close the door as he ran out with shirt open and shoes in his hands.He threw the bag and shoes in the front of the limo and sped away from the motel...

Customer Reviews
Average Rating 4
( 42 )

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  • Posted June 17, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    Over-the-top mayhem. In a good way.

    I read Dorsey's first Serge Storms novel, "Florida Roadkill," a few years back. I didn't remember being extremely enamored with the character, but I did enjoy it, so I recently decided to revisit the series with the follow-up, "Hammerhead Ranch Motel."

    Over-the-top is putting things lightly. All of the characters are big-time, and very few have any true redeeming qualities. It speaks novels to Dorsey's (hopefully) fictionalized Florida that a homicidal maniac who just happens to know everything there is to know about his state is the clear protagonist, even when he's dispatching his victims in some of the most absurd, yet clever, ways imaginable.

    The story is fast-paced, with dozens of sub-plots that all tie together very nicely by the end of the story, while also setting in motion the plot of Book Three of the series, which I am certain to dive into in the very near future.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted February 2, 2012

    Highly recommended

    Very fun to read, fast action with great characters. I just ordered the next in the series, cant wait to read..

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 21, 2005

    Outstanding

    I laughed my way through most of this book, and have purchased every book Dorsey has released since. He has a brilliant way of tying characters and incidents together in a completely hilarious way. It's like a Seinfeld episode on caffine overload.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 28, 2003

    Vintage Florida

    How Serge A. Storm has really lasted this long is purely by the grace of Tim Dorsey's benevolent mind. This time he's maybe just a little more than a bubble and a half off plumb: the more-than-whacko Diaz Brothers (er, Boys) the wanna-be mafia boss Zargoza, rejects from Miami Vice, and a weather-dog are all churning up the trademark wake in Dorsey's Florida waters. If you get on A1A, or US1, or, for that matter, any of the widening strips of fast-lane Florida interstate, you're bound to run in to any...maybe all of these characters; they're all too real these days. I'll catch my breath while Tim Dorsey pours another cup of Colombian Supreme and serves up another of his high-octane, caffiene-induced tales. Whew!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 6, 2000

    Pack Your Bags and Head for the Panhandle

    The sequel to Florida Roadkill, this book is set during hurricane season on Florida's Gulf Coast. A psychotic spree killer, his journalist sidekick, and an assortment of ex-cons and seedy locals are determined to ride out the storm while taking care of unfinished business inside the Hammerhead Ranch Motel. These eccentric characters make for a funny and entertaining read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 25, 2000

    Funderful!!

    I rated this book as outstanding because it is such a great read for anyone who enjoys truely comedic mysteries filled with characters that would take one fantastic imagination to come up with or a true knowledge of street people. It is my ever humble opinion that Tim Dorsey has both plus a love of the City of Tampa. Well done!! Now I am reaching out to get a copy of 'Florida Roadkill' and I pray for Mr. Dorsey's good health, mental and physical, so he can work on yet more manuscripts. Florida is so full of genuine people and characters for a writer like Mr. Dorsey to work with and I bet he knows many personally. I hope a producer of stage plays reads this novel as it will be SRO on Broadway!!

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  • Posted December 9, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    Humorous mystery

    At the end of FLORIDA ROADKILL, homicidal maniac Serge has still not obtained the five million dollars in laundered drug money he sought. The stash is hidden in a secret panel inside the trunk of a Chrysler New Yorker driven by an innocent person unaware of his cargo. The driver wearing a Santa suit leaps from a bridge bringing the media focus on the event. Serge is back on the trail of the money.

    Eventually the loot, Serge, other con artists, gangsters, and assorted ilk end up at the Hammerhead Roach Motel, an eyesore, located in an exclusive town in Southern Florida. Former drug supplier turned flim flam man Zargaza runs the motel with the aid of two bumbling thugs. With Hurricane Rolando-berto keeping the collection of riff raff in the motel, violence is inevitable.

    There are so many weird, eccentric, but funny characters populating the HOMESTEAD RANCH MOTEL in unusual situations, readers will think the story line is irrelevant. Instead, the cleverly designed mystery uses a cartoon-like cast to propel the superb story line, with its biting social commentary, forward to a wild finish. Tim Dorsey makes the irrelevant relevant with his satirical romps.

    Harriet Klausner

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