Floats like a jellyfish, stings like a serial killer

FICTION

Brace yourselves, everyone. Serge Storms has discovered the Internet.

In retrospect, we should have seen it coming. The serial-killing hero of Tim Dorsey's comic crime series has previously taken on Hollywood, cruise ships and hurricanes. Surely, the Web loomed.

Now, with "Nuclear Jellyfish," Dorsey's brilliantly, profanely funny 11th novel, Serge storms the digital firewalls meant to keep sociopaths off the Information Superhighway.

Not surprisingly, cyberspace doesn't impress Storms. "The Internet was supposed to become the ultimate democratic forum," he says. "It did: Now everyone can be a porn star."

Storms skips the skin and -- true to form -- instead launches a Web site offering reviews of Florida's overlooked tourist destinations (one of Storms' obsessions). He also signs up to file reports about hotels for another travel site. Among his subjects: Elvis Presley's favorite hotel room in Jacksonville.

Meanwhile (a word that comes in handy when describing Dorsey's overlapping storylines), stampand coin-dealers-turned-diamond-couriers (yes, you read that correctly) are finding themselves targeted by a hulking sociopath nicknamed -- but only behind his back -- Jellyfish, for the botched tattoo on his chest.

But wait: Why would a gun-toting sociopath want a jellyfish tattoo on his chest (or anywhere else, for that matter)? Dorsey knew you would ask.

"The man had told the tattoo artist to surprise him with something scary, but the artist was ripped on crank and kept messing up," Dorsey writes. "A spitting cobra became a flying lizard, then a gargoyle, then a tarantula -- 'Wait, I can fix it!' -- vampire bat, horned toad, mud dauber wasp, Gila monster -- the customer's face growing increasingly crimson with silent rage -- coyote, T. rex, briefly a badger, space robot, Chinese symbol, daisy chain of swastikas, and the head of Mamie Eisenhower, until it was finally one big, irreversible blob."

Then the artist had an inspired idea: Use glow-in-the-dark ink to turn the blob into a luminous jellyfish.

"The artist was paid for his work with a free burial at sea," Dorsey reports.

It's the sort of comic detail that distinguishes Dorsey's manic creativity and penchant for striking imagery (a villain in a previous Storms novel had a life-sized skull tattooed onto his face), and it sets up a nifty title for the novel, as well.

(A quick aside: The titles of Dorsey's novels often have marine themes. Last year's was "Atomic Lobster." What's next? "Cold Fusion for Crustaceans"? "Apocalyptic Octopus"?)

Naturally, Storms happens upon one of the diamond couriers, who in turn leads him to Jellyfish. (Tidy piece of plotting, eh?) And Storms knows what to do with a glowing-tattoo-bearing villain picking on weaker and relatively innocent people (some of whom collect cool stuff such as vintage View-Masters, to boot): exterminate the brute -- with creative flourish, of course.

As a local reporter says in describing Storms' choice of weaponry from a Home Depot, "To the stable individual, everything here appears innocent and cheerful. But to a heart filled with malice, evil lurks beneath the begonias."

There may never be a bad time to read Dorsey's novels, which zip along like P.G. Wodehouse's best work (or would, if Wodehouse had seen the comic potential sadistic murders hold).

But in these troubled economic times, a book that offers moral retribution and at least one good laugh per page is an especially valuable commodity (and a great return on your investment).

Maybe next time Dorsey could parachute Storms into the shark-laden waters of Wall Street.

Doug Childers is a Richmond writer and edits WAG, a literary Web site at http://www.thewag.net.