Q+A: Tim Dorsey

Friday, March 9, 2007 | 7:04 a.m.

What: An Evening With Tim Dorsey

When: 7 p.m. Monday

Where: Clark County Library's Jewel Box Theater, 1401 E. Flamingo Road

Admission: Free, 507-3400

Usually the descriptions "wacky," "zany," "hilarious" and "screwball" are enough to keep you away from summer blockbusters, but when it comes to literature there's nothing quite like a little light reading.

Critics affectionately use all those adjectives to describe Tim Dorsey's nine novels.

Dorsey's latest, "Hurricane Punch," lets readers ride shotgun with his recurring character Serge A. Storms, a maniacal yet moralistic serial killer who eliminates the scum of society while stopping in the Sunshine State's tourist hot spots and deserted towns.

Dorsey, who will be in Las Vegas next week to sign books and meet fans at the Clark County Library, was a reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune for a dozen years before turning to fiction and creating the trivia-obsessed Storms and his sidekick, Coleman.

In a rental car heading from Denver to a book signing in Boulder, Colo., Dorsey weaves in and out of traffic exchanging lanes with other drivers on cell phones, talking about his dialogue-driven book and his main character.

Q: Why do we like Serge?

Serge is doing the things we'd like to do. He's got kind of a cult following. He comes across the same people we come across in daily life. On one hand, he's this vicious criminal; on the other hand, he has this underlying moral code.

Where did the character come from?

He's basically the guy I look at in the bathroom mirror every morning.

But you're a married father of two. Serge is a vicious, yet lovable, serial killer with a wicked sense of humor. Where do you make the connection?

Well, my wife won't let me kill people. But I want to kill these people. There's just a lot of law-abiding citizens out there who try to hold up the rules, and we have to keep taking it from these jerks. And the rule breakers are winning.

So it's an alter ego?

No, it's just an ego.

You were a reporter for so many years. How much of this came from your beat?

More than you believe. A lot of it is thinly veiled reality. This last book was born out of the 2004 hurricane season when I was working on "The Big Bamboo." Either we had to evacuate or relatives on the other side of the state had to evacuate and come stay with us.

Your books are a big hit in Florida. Are Floridians pretty tuned into the local culture that you expose in your books?

There is a lot of local color and history that I include. The stories are fiction, but I like to have the details of the history and background. Some like them for the stories themselves.

You've taken Serge to Hollywood to defend misguided cinematic representations of Florida. Any chance Serge and Coleman will ever come to Las Vegas?

I'm a little intimidated because one of my heroes, Hunter S. Thompson, made the definitive trip to Las Vegas.

Do you gather new ideas on your cross-country trek?

Usually in Florida because I stay in a lot of seedy hotels. One night I had a weird vibe that something was going on so I went out to move my car closer to the rental office. I came out of my room and this SWAT team and film crew came running past me and converged on this room. Some were hiding behind the cars. They must have been filming "Cops" or something.

I thought, "I should have stayed in my room or I should have taken a picture." Then I went over to Waffle House where everyone had a clear view of what was happening. They were inside singing, "Bad boys, bad boys." This happens all the time. Even at the nice hotels.

Did you set out to write comedy or to write mystery?

One of the main reasons was to have Serge run around Florida like a loon, gobbling up and spitting out everything about the state.

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