100 Books in One Year. #4: Hurricane Punch by Tim Dorsey
Book Reviews | September 16, 2008 | Comments (4)
I hate to say it, but this series is starting to wain. It doesn’t necessarily jump the shark so much as stuff someone full of nitroglycerin inside a shark and then blow it up at Sea World. But it’s starting to suffer the same trend of many long-running series. There’s nothing fresh they can do. The last book, The Big Bamboo, they took it out to Hollywood, and it worked.
This one took place back in Florida with Serge racing through the eyes of hurricanes while a second serial killer was trying to replicate his acts. He was furious with the news coverage, so he tries to up the ante. He doesn’t randomly thrill kill, he just murders assholes. Like a Hip-Hop Redneck who’s blaring Rap-Metal in his shitty little car. The guy mouths off to Serge, so Serge converts a hotel room into a giant amp, by wiring magnets and metal around the room and then nailing up plywood. Then, using a wireless transponder on his guitar, he started playing “Sympathy for the Devil.” The resulting sound waves force the guy to hemorrhage from his pores.
But the deaths are fewer and farther between. Granted, after the sheer insanity of the first book, where a cast of 35 dwindles down to 4 or 5, it’s hard to top. But this book should have been a non-stop onslaught of awesome. Instead it was kind of, meh.
There are two more coming out soon, Atomic Lobster and Nuclear Jellyfish. I’ll still read them, but I’m not clamoring for them like I was early in the series.
This review is part of the Cannonball Read series. You can read more about it, here.
Comments
Posted by: Jim at September 16, 2008 9:30 AM
Causing a hemorrhage with "Sympathy For the Devil."
Wish I thought of that. It would make my screenplay a little more interesting.