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The Stingray Shuffle

7 Sep 03
Reviewed By Steve Nester

In Tim Dorsey?s fifth novel, The Stingray Shuffle, have-psychosis-will-travel protagonist Serge A. Storms is back in the Sunshine State with the suitcase containing the same $5 million in cash that has been kicking around Florida for Dorsey?s past four books. Between Serge, a hapless cocaine cartel, Russian spies, six small time Vegas nightclub acts, the Books, Booze and Broads club, and the surreal story line of The Stingray Shuffle , the suitcase doesn?t stand a chance. Now add to this author Ralph Krunkleton, and how his book, The Stingray Shuffle became a bestseller, and you have the best book Tim Dorsey has written.

im Dorsey was put on this earth to make merry the minds of men and women readers. His novels are over-the-top satire that depends upon the reader suspending disbelief; but once one is in the groove, an adventure in humor follows. As readers once put skepticism aside with the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Jules Verne, in the same manner do readers sit back and let Dorsey?s imagination do the work for the sake of entertainment. There is no escaping Dorsey?s humor. If sections of the book don?t tickle one?s funny bone with blithe wit, then another will certainly clobber it with careening slapstick.

The briefcase Serge is chasing is part of an insurance fraud scheme perpetrated by the Mierda drug cartel during hurricane Rolando-Berto in Florida Roadkill, Dorsey?s first book, and has been mishandled ever since. Now the cartel has hired some former Soviet spies to retrieve the suitcase from the hands of Jethro and Paul, two hillbillies on the run.

While The Stingray Shuffle is a caper/chase thriller, it is more importantly a vehicle for satire of Florida, politics, drug culture, and everything and anything that happens to wander into Tim Dorsey?s brain as he ?s writing the book. Nihilistic German discotheque music is described as ??music designed to make people think, ?Gee, it?s got a great beat to dance to, but what would be the fucking point?? Book fads and the people who are slaves to them is also a target. For instance, says now famous author Krunkleton to an audience on a murder mystery train based on his book, The Stingray Shuffle, ?I?m getting to associate with a better class of people by writing about a worse class of people.? This pretty much sums up the fascination with the dark side of the street. Dorsey is very quotable; in fact, after reading any of his books it is a jaded quipster who hasn?t culled a saying or two and put it away for his or her own personal use. Eventually, a reader who records felicitous statements from books will collect quite a few from Dorsey.

And it is Ralph Krunkleton, the once unheralded writer, who takes this bulging, ticking, suspicious bundle of vain strivings tied that no customs agent would allow to enter the country, and unites everyone for a train wreck of a denouement.

After years of publishing novels no one read, one of Ralph?s novels, published years before, has landed on the bestsellers lists. The book?s popularity is based on the fact that the Mierda cartel?s retail division is selling copies that contain street level quantities of cocaine. When users enter a certain south Florida bookstore and ask for Krunkleton?s The Stingray Shuffle, customers get a nod, a wink, the book and the dope. It?s no wonder this book is popular. When the action of Dorsey?s book begins to mirror the action of Krunkleton?s book, Dorsey keeps the action and plot lines well delineated and unconfused.

Novels by Tim Dorsey are full of peripheral information brought to one by the curious mind of Serge A. Storms. For instance, after reading this book one will become conversant on railroads? effects on developing Florida, what a cigar reader is, and the finer points of luxury Pullman cars.

The plot of The Stingray Shuffle unfolds and mutates too quickly and extravagantly to recount completely, and that would spoil all the fun of reading it. This is a book that one will be torn between spreading the good news about and loaning it to friends, or setting it on the bookshelf for safekeeping.

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