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Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey. The first in the long-running Serge Storms series, which has such neon-bright covers and memorable titles ("Nuclear Jellyfish", "Gator A-Go-Go", and "Atomic Lobster", for a few examples) that I've been meaning to check them out for ages. I was stymied by wanting – reasonably! – to start with the first book, but had some difficult finding it; it was published in 1999, which is practically historic by now.

But I have finally managed to find and read it and so I can say: it's pretty much the same as Carl Hiaasen. Which isn't a criticism – I like Hiaasen! Sure, there are some differences: Dorsey's cast is a motley crew of amusing sociopaths, while Hiaasen usually throws in at least one good guy who vaguely resembles a real human to root for; Dorsey's plotting is somehow even looser and more of a string of random scenes than Hiaasen's; the violence is even more over-the-top, cartoonish, and slapsticky. But honestly, if someone had switched the authors' names on the cover, I wouldn't have noticed.

The plot is hard to summarize, since it's a collection of disjointed threads that only come together at the end in surprising ways. We have: Sean and Dave, two normal guys on a fishing trip; George Veale, sleazy dentist who has just embezzled $5 million; Mo Grenadine, a radio talk show host propelled into politics by appealing to the lowest, most racist, homophobic denominator; the most incompetent cocaine cartel in the world; a trio of wannabe Hell's Angels who, after getting kicked out of every motorcycle gang, become the resident guardians of a trailer park retirement home; a deadly pesticide; a fetishest obsessed with Barbie dolls; and an insurance company that manages to be evil even by the low, low standards of insurance companies. But the main characters, such as they are, are the trio of Serge, Coleman, and Sharon. Serge, who gives his name to the whole series, is a sociopath with an obsession with Florida history and trivia. His sidekick Coleman is dumb, good-natured, and usually too drunk or high to object to anything, and Sharon, the beautiful violent coke-fiend, joins the others for the sake of the money and drugs they accidentally accumulate on their way across Florida.

I enjoyed the book, but it's not exactly something I'd recommend to others unless you have a very particular taste. If jokes about the crazy exploits of 'Florida man', the weirder and more explicit the better, tickle your sense of humor, than this may be the book for you. Otherwise look for your mindless beach read elsewhere.

Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. A new biography of Jane Austen, structured around the various houses she lived in. It's a neat approach to organizing a life-story, though ultimately I don't think it influenced the text as much as I'd expected it to.

This is the first Austen biography I've read, so I can't say how it compares to others. It didn't include anything I was particularly shocked to learn, but then she didn't really have a life full of surprises, did she? Worsley describes herself as writing against the Austen family's early portrayal of Jane as a modest, virtuous aunt; she heavily emphasizes Jane's anger and sarcasm in her surviving letters, her ambition in seeing her books published and being paid for them, and the existence of her brother George, who was sent away to live with caregivers due to his epilepsy and whose existence was hidden by the family. It's an easy, enjoyable read, even if there doesn't seem to be much new or different here. Worsley does expect her audience to be very familiar with Austen's books, frequently dropping in allusions to characters or plots, but on the other hand, that's probably a fair assumption of the self-selecting audience of an Austen biography.

I liked it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a biography out there that does the job better.

I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.