The Serge Storms series by Tim Dorsey is bananas. Serge is insane and usually off his meds. His eternally stoned sidekick Coleman is either going along with whatever Serge wants or randomly messing up Serge's well laid plans. Usually, these books are some version of Serge's love of Florida and its history.

This time around the story is set mainly in LA and Hollywood where a massively overbudget film is getting no closer to being finished and the studio owners and their Japanese investors are increasingly frustrated with the director.

Then the lead actress gets kidnapped, and an innocent young screenwriter is accused of the crime, but he didn't do it.

The rest gets even crazier than the usual Serge and Coleman adventures. The twists keep twisting and keeping track of who is conning who is nearly impossible but also hilarious.

Very dark humor and remember that Serge is technically not a serial killer. He just keeps coming across people who need killing. ( )

This book had its shining moments, and the underlying story, or backstory, was actually pretty great, but I didn't believe that it was presented all that well. Serge too was good, not great, and Coleman was more annoying than usual.

The backstory turns out to be fairly simple, and I loved that. But to get there the story was all over the place. As I mentioned above, I don't think the narrative did it justice, nor, ultimately, the amazing cast of characters. It took forever, until the very end, to see how it was all tied together; if this was a whodunit then maybe that would have worked, but in this case just made the story over-the-top wacky.

I liked that Serge went to California and took his arcane movie history to Hollywood. I thought all of that was well presented, and taking a jab at the esoteric lifestyle surrounding the film industry was also very good.

In any case, we still get some vintage Dorsey through the eyes of Serge like...

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A '71 Buick Riviera was stuck in a sea of traffic on U.S. 192. A hundred cars moving a few blocks a time, traffic light to traffic light, all red.

The light turned green. A minute later, the Riviera began moving slowly. The same light turned red again.

Serge smacked the steering wheel. "I can't tell you how crazy this kind of traffic makes me. Why are all these people going this way?"

Coleman drained a beer and crumpled the can. "We're going this way, too."

"But they're making lifestyle mistakes. We're driving for truth."

[And.]

The Chrysler made a pair of lefts. The black Grand Marquis remained a half-dozen lengths back. Serge raced up an entrance ramp to the freeway. He slammed to a stop.

Coleman grabbed the dash. "What happened?"

Serge pointed up beside the car. "Ramps in California have traffic lights."

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It has been so long since I had to navigate through hell that I had totally forgotten that some people actually accept living in places that put traffic lights on the interstate entrance. Lifestyle mistakes to the Nth degree. And I always thought the same as Serge watching people parked on the I405, I have always wondered why the people that go north in the morning didn't find jobs in the south, and vise verse. Nope that would make too much effing sense.... ( )

Serge and Coleman go to Hollywood

Like Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey has created some of the quirkiest, most absurd and funniest characters in book history. Like Hiaasen, Dorsey's writing is hilarious. Unlike Hiaasen, however, I think this one story is plenty enough for me. The book was like someone with ADHD on speed. It moved like lightning and never slowed down. Ever. Serge Storms is exhausting and I do not need to go any further. Honestly, the only reason I finished this book is that George K. Wilson is such an epic narrator. His flawless narration was awesome. I wonder if he reads any Hiaasen. ( )

One of the very few books that made me laugh out loud. Probably because I listened to it and the reader was fantastic. ( )