Atomic Lobster
By Tim Dorsey
Completed December 31, 2007

Atomic Lobster was one fast ride. It’s a story about Serge A. Storms, a criminal who always ends up helping the underdog, and his motley crew consisting of Coleman, a pothead alcoholic, and Rachael, a coke-sniffing stripper. In this story, Serge is hell-bent on protecting Jim Davenport, who saved Serge’s life ten years prior and is being hunted down by a serial killer. It’s also the story of four old ladies who have learned that it’s cheaper to go on cruises all year than to live in a retirement home. And it’s a story of the Mexican drug trade and terrorist attempts to poison Americans with anthrax. All of these subplots rapidly weave and twist their way through the story, until the end when they all come together in an Old West-meets -Florida fashion.

This story is not one of my usual genres, but I have to admit that I enjoyed the book. Excuse my eighth grade vernacular, but there’s something totally cool about seeing familiar streets, shopping centers, bridges, bars and cultural events in a book. The characters drive up the road I take to work every morning. They stop at a shopping center where I used to work. It’s like seeing your neighbor on TV over and over again, and this helped make Atomic Lobster very amusing to me.

Dorsey also chose “only in Florida” new stories and mixed them into the story. I am not sure if a non-local would “get” the humor behind a toll booth operator alerting police that a man’s body was stuck to the front of a car, or a house being sold dirt cheap because the owner, who was a county official, cut corners on code enforcement. But for a local, this is funny stuff. From the state the brought you hanging chads and the president’s brother, Florida does not get enough credit for being a little bit backwards. Read Dorsey and you’ll get a huge dose of the absurdity that can be the Sunshine State.

If you like dark humor and high crime, and don’t mind the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, then I would recommend Atomic Lobster to you. If it’s not your cup of tea and you don’t live in the Tampa Bay area, I think you can safely skip this book. ( )

Note: Atomic Lobster will be released in February 2008.