Orange Crush (Serge Storms Series #3)

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Tim Dorsey, author of the hysterical novels Florida Roadkill and Hammerhead Ranch Motel, gives his fans another outrageous, bawdy, and raucous tale in Orange Crush. Once again we’re taken on a tour through the dark heart of Florida as gubernatorial candidate Marlon Conrad goes off the deep end and winds up touring in a campaign bus gaudily ornamented with a giant Orange Crush logo. Story threads involving a bizarre serial killer hooked on the folklore of Florida and Marlon’s opponent Gomer Tatum, who wants to win the race by holding a WWF death match, also keep this sardonic novel running in high gear. Orange Crush offers satirical situations, laugh-out-loud dialogue, and plenty of action that will win this popular author even more diehard fans.

Orlando Sentinel

Tim Dorsey stirs up an elixir that even Big Sugar, with all its political clout, could not make more sweet.
—July 8, 2001

Miami Herald

Nobody but nobody writes like this guy.
—July 22, 2001

St. Petersburg Times

Dorsey spares almost no one in his third novel, and that's what makes Orange Crush so wickedly refreshing.
—July 8, 2001

Tampa Tribune

Dorsey has emerged a leader ... in the parody/satire/humorist business.
—July 8, 2001

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Florida crime fiction has its stars ... Dorsey, with yet another consistently entertaining page-turner, may be stealing the franchise.
—July 1, 2001

Publishers Weekly

Florida politics get roundly skewered in Tim Dorsey's (Hammerhead Ranch Hotel) Orange Crush, a relentless farce about the battle for the Sunshine State's governorship between Republican incumbent Marlon Conrad and Democratic underdog Gomer Tatum. Conrad, completely beholden to special-interest groups, seems like a shoo-in, but an epiphany for Conrad when his reserve unit is posted to the Balkans changes everything. Would-be assassins, spin doctors, scandalmongers, bloodthirsty journalists, lobbyists and at least one serial killer (Dorsey regular Serge E. Storms) are along for the wild ride. Thoroughly cynical and over-the-top from the prologue to the "note on the type," it will produce laughs under many a beach umbrella. ( July 10) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Dorsey (Florida Roadkill) does it again with his latest screwball novel. Republican Lt. Gov. Marlon Conrad is a shoo-in for the next Florida gubernatorial race, thanks to a fortunate twist of fate, a wealthy father, and well-connected friends. He thus considers it an advantage when his army reserve unit is called up for a peacekeeping detail in Serbia, where a traumatic experience changes his entire outlook on life. When the campaign begins to heat up, he ditches security and hits the road in a secondhand Winnebago, garishly painted with the Orange Crush logo. Dorsey's oddball crew of characters includes the serial killer Serge A. Storms, of Florida Roadkill fame, and Conrad's political opponent, Gomer "Boo-Book" Tatum. The result is manmade pandemonium, with Conrad outwitting the security guards, playing to the masses, dodging assassination attempts, and leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake. Dorsey takes this opportunity to laugh heartily at his home state's electoral policies and recent political foul-ups. For most libraries. Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An accidental Florida governor gets political religion and steers a virtuous reelection campaign through the roadside stands and swamps of the state that gave us both our current president and Pee-Wee Herman. How many subtropical grotesques can you cram into one candidate's Winnebago? In Dorsey's Sunshine State you can apparently grab any five people off the sidewalk to populate a novel, since there seems to be no one just walking around unmedicated. Absolutely everyone here is way over the top, whether it's Jackie, the trailer-park tart hard-charging on her way to the first ladyship; Babs, her ventriloqual competitor for the mansion in Tallassee, the epically corrupt state legislature, or the airheaded news anchor chasing his story in a blimp. Former newsman Dorsey (Hammerhead Ranch Motel, 2000) packs a recreational plot vehicle with an abused tennis starlet, an amnesiac press officer, an Ehrlichmanic chief of staff, a secretly virtuous but still sexy political consultant, and the Republican candidate himself, Marlon Conrad, a handpicked, supposed-to-be-controllable young goof-off lieutenant governor, whose conscience got raised from the dead after an erroneous but enlightening posting to Kosovo with his reserve unit, an assignment that turned the lightweight fratboy into a media hero after a shootout with the evil Serbs. Kicked up to governor when his predecessor's hooker-loaded plane crashes in Alaska, Conrad is the party's man for the rapidly approaching election. If this is the way Florida really is (and the recent presidential election does seem to support the case), Carl Hiaasen has been holding back. At the wheel of his garish mobile HQ, with its flamboyant Orange Crush logo,Marlon shunpikes through the state's glitzless underbelly, paying his respects to the poor but noble families of his late army buddies, emerging from the boondocks every now and then for a debate with House Speaker Gomer Tatum. Oh, and there are serial killers on the loose. Too cute. Author tour