- Hardcover: 322 pages
- Publisher: William Morrow & Company (Jan 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060585609
- ISBN-13: 978-0060585600
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.5 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,589,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
IT WAS ANOTHER typically beautiful morning in the middle of the Florida Keys. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
IT WAS ANOTHER typically beautiful morning in the middle of the Florida Keys. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Sometimes authors make mistakes, like killing a character they shouldn't have. Then, they come up with contrived stories that try to explain why the character wasn't really dead, and bring him / her back. Dorsey, with his irreverent and unorthodox style is not going to stoop that low. The craziness in his stories allows him to simply accept he made a mistake, and ask us to forget about the fact that Coleman was dead. Now we can once more experience the laughs this character, together with Serge A. Storms, brings to the table.
If you are a fan of the series, you are used to Dorsey's writing style, seemingly unconnected passages, with hilarious situations, that start to make sense about a quarter of the way through. But that never really make complete sense! In this case, this style is exacerbated, so if you have come to accept it, like I did, you will be fine. For people that have not being exposed to the author before, I recommend you start elsewhere; the best is to read these books in the order of publication.
The humor in this installment is at the usual high level, with the typical satiric elements and much more. The only thing that I did not particularly enjoy much was that Serge was not as "convincing" in dealing with annoying people as he has been in the past. Seeing Serge punish those that deserve it, is usually and entertaining experience, and that aspect was fairly limited in this novel. However, to compensate for that, Serge is on the prowl for a wife! Yes, you read right. He is looking to settle down and start a family. When I read this, two questions instantly popped up on my mind. Will he find someone willing to marry him? If he does, is there even a remote chance of it working out alright?
Fans of the series cannot afford to miss the answers to those questions, which are presented together with a bunch of loony characters and hilarious situations. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the series, you are used to Dorsey's writing style, seemingly unconnected passages, with hilarious situations, that start to make sense about a quarter of the way through. But that never really make complete sense! In this case, this style is exacerbated, so if you have come to accept it, like I did, you will be fine. For people that have not being exposed to the author before, I recommend you start elsewhere; the best is to read these books in the order of publication.
The humor in this installment is at the usual high level, with the typical satiric elements and much more. The only thing that I did not particularly enjoy much was that Serge was not as "convincing" in dealing with annoying people as he has been in the past. Seeing Serge punish those that deserve it, is usually and entertaining experience, and that aspect was fairly limited in this novel. However, to compensate for that, Serge is on the prowl for a wife! Yes, you read right. He is looking to settle down and start a family. When I read this, two questions instantly popped up on my mind. Will he find someone willing to marry him? If he does, is there even a remote chance of it working out alright?
Fans of the series cannot afford to miss the answers to those questions, which are presented together with a bunch of loony characters and hilarious situations. Enjoy!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
37 reviews
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Typical Dorsey - as addictive as Coleman's weed
7 Feb 2005
Format:Hardcover
If you're looking for highbrow, Pulitzer Prize-type material in a book, don't look here. But if you're looking for a book that will entertain you with some good laughs, which is my kind of book, then Tim Dorsey's your man. It's not every writer that could make a serial killer into a character than you can identify with and root for, but Dorsey does it. He is easily one of my favorite writers.
As for Torpedo Juice, this book marks the return of that lovable loser Coleman. The circumstances by which Dorsey brings him back are somewhat iffy, but who cares, we're reading this book for fun not for realism. Serge also gets married in this book, and learns some of the hard lessons that all men who have gone before him have to face sooner or later (i.e. that logic has no meaning where wives are concerned). The rest of the plot for Torpedo Juice was a little weak though, I thought. Usually Dorsey has about 4-5 plotlines all running simultaneously that come crashing together at the end, but TJ didn't really have that whiz-bang feeling to it.
In my opinion Dorsey has fallen into a pattern where his even-numbered books (Hammerhead, Triggerfish, Cadillac) are terrific, and the odd-numbered books (Roadkill, Orange, Stingray, Torpedo) less so, though still quite good. Triggerfish Twist is quite possibly THE funniest book I've ever read; I can't recommend it highly enough. Torpedo Juice isn't Dorsey's best effort, but I still enjoyed every minute of it and can't wait for the next adventure of Serge A. Storms. Plus maybe we'll get Coleman and Lenny together in the same book; that should be interesting.
As for Torpedo Juice, this book marks the return of that lovable loser Coleman. The circumstances by which Dorsey brings him back are somewhat iffy, but who cares, we're reading this book for fun not for realism. Serge also gets married in this book, and learns some of the hard lessons that all men who have gone before him have to face sooner or later (i.e. that logic has no meaning where wives are concerned). The rest of the plot for Torpedo Juice was a little weak though, I thought. Usually Dorsey has about 4-5 plotlines all running simultaneously that come crashing together at the end, but TJ didn't really have that whiz-bang feeling to it.
In my opinion Dorsey has fallen into a pattern where his even-numbered books (Hammerhead, Triggerfish, Cadillac) are terrific, and the odd-numbered books (Roadkill, Orange, Stingray, Torpedo) less so, though still quite good. Triggerfish Twist is quite possibly THE funniest book I've ever read; I can't recommend it highly enough. Torpedo Juice isn't Dorsey's best effort, but I still enjoyed every minute of it and can't wait for the next adventure of Serge A. Storms. Plus maybe we'll get Coleman and Lenny together in the same book; that should be interesting.
35 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Another welcome and wonderful excursion into South Florida
30 Jan 2005
Format:Hardcover
You'd have to be crazy to live someplace that could have four back-to-back hurricanes. But then it's probably not the hurricanes that draw people to South Florida. There's something about what a perpetually sunny if occasionally murderously windy climate does to people that provides the fodder for writers like Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry (wearing his fiction hat), and Tim Dorsey.
TORPEDO JUICE, Dorsey's sixth novel, provides yet another welcome and wonderful excursion into the land famous for oranges, gators, an animated rodent, hanging chads, and the aforementioned meteorological phenomenon that causes shopping malls to swap roofs.
Before you're forty pages into Dorsey's latest effort you've encountered a menagerie of loopy characters. Chief among them is Serge A. Storms, a rather charming, intelligent, and likable homicidal maniac who rescues a couple of vacationing retirees from a lowlife who has barged into their hotel room to clean out their cash. Shortly thereafter Serge turns an MRI machine into an instrument of street justice. The result is the definition of "fiendishly clever," and leaves homicide detectives trying to figure out why the body they've found has exit wounds only. From there things take a turn for the strange, as Serge hooks up with a perpetually stoned pothead named Coleman and embarks on a quest to find a marriageable girl.
Dorsey is an undeniably funny writer, with a remarkable knack for wringing laughter out of situations that might otherwise make readers squirm. He revels in the bizarre, and his characters always seem to be at the center of swirls and eddies of weirdness, like that cloud of dust that accompanied Pigpen in Charles Schultz's "Peanuts" comics. But Dorsey pulls this off without descending into silliness. This is funny stuff, made even funnier by virtue of its underlying darkness.
TORPEDO JUICE is my first exposure to Tim Dorsey, which is too bad because now I have no choice but to go out and buy his six previous books. But no sacrifice is too great when it comes to overloading my already straining bookshelves with stuff that is well worth reading. Besides, the added weight will keep the shelves in place here on the North Coast if Lake Erie ever produces a hurricane.
--- Reviewed by Bob Rhubart
TORPEDO JUICE, Dorsey's sixth novel, provides yet another welcome and wonderful excursion into the land famous for oranges, gators, an animated rodent, hanging chads, and the aforementioned meteorological phenomenon that causes shopping malls to swap roofs.
Before you're forty pages into Dorsey's latest effort you've encountered a menagerie of loopy characters. Chief among them is Serge A. Storms, a rather charming, intelligent, and likable homicidal maniac who rescues a couple of vacationing retirees from a lowlife who has barged into their hotel room to clean out their cash. Shortly thereafter Serge turns an MRI machine into an instrument of street justice. The result is the definition of "fiendishly clever," and leaves homicide detectives trying to figure out why the body they've found has exit wounds only. From there things take a turn for the strange, as Serge hooks up with a perpetually stoned pothead named Coleman and embarks on a quest to find a marriageable girl.
Dorsey is an undeniably funny writer, with a remarkable knack for wringing laughter out of situations that might otherwise make readers squirm. He revels in the bizarre, and his characters always seem to be at the center of swirls and eddies of weirdness, like that cloud of dust that accompanied Pigpen in Charles Schultz's "Peanuts" comics. But Dorsey pulls this off without descending into silliness. This is funny stuff, made even funnier by virtue of its underlying darkness.
TORPEDO JUICE is my first exposure to Tim Dorsey, which is too bad because now I have no choice but to go out and buy his six previous books. But no sacrifice is too great when it comes to overloading my already straining bookshelves with stuff that is well worth reading. Besides, the added weight will keep the shelves in place here on the North Coast if Lake Erie ever produces a hurricane.
--- Reviewed by Bob Rhubart
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
God I love these books!
14 Feb 2005
Format:Hardcover
For anyone who is not sure about Tim Dorsey and his series of books, I can only say one thing: You do not know what you are missing! These are quite possibly some of the funniest, intelligent books I have ever read. It started with Triggerfish Twist (THE FUNNIEST BOOK OF ALL TIME) and has culminated with Torpedo Juice. His latest book is not quite up to the hilarious rollercoasters of his past books, but is still a Laugh out Loud, wonderful story about marriage, florida, murder, drugs, and everything else I have come to love in Tim Dorsey's novels. I never thought I would cheer for a serial murderer, or his drug-crazed friends, but I cannot help myself! I finished this latest book onboard a Southwest airplane during a trip to Orlando. I just could not put it down! And I walked off that plane wearing my Serge Storms Ball cap (with the little gun-toting fish and signed by Tim Dorsey) and my Serge World Tour T-shirt, grinning from ear-to-ear, and still chuckling about AA meetings. Go out and buy this book. Read them all! You will not be sorry.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
