Serge A. Storms
Encyclopedia
Serge A. Storms is the main fictional character
in most of Tim Dorsey
's novels (and appears in all of them to date). His name is a pun
on storm surge
.
In most of Dorsey's books, Storms is in his mid-forties in age. He is described as tall and thin, but muscular, with dark hair shot through with gray.
Serge has been diagnosed with a variety of mental illness
es, and has been prescribed a "cocktail" of drugs to keep him stable. These are effective, but he often refuses to take them, since he dislikes their effects. Free from the drugs' influence, he quickly becomes manic
and obsessive
about trivial things; he frequently acts as an extremely eccentric tour guide
for whoever happens to be handy. Despite his psychological disorders, Serge is for the most part a charismatic, likeable person (he can be viewed as a somewhat more liberal
version of Joseph Heller
's Yossarian
). When an event or person offends his extremely strong (and subjective) sense of justice
, however, he can quickly fly into a homicidal
rage; he has committed a string of murders for which the police pursue him as a serial killer
. Serge acts as an independent vigilante who dispenses rough, creative and immediate death penalties for low-life criminals, somewhat in the style of Death Wish (film)
(and its sequels) starring Charles Bronson
.
All aspects of the history of Florida, whether political, ecological, or sociological, are of intense interest to Serge. He is often seized with a sudden urge to visit landmarks, although their significance is frequently personal or related to popular culture
, rather than historical. Serge usually documents such visits with copious amounts of photographs and keeps a box full of Florida-related memorabilia.
Serge also has a varied taste in music, ranging from modern urban to the Beatles and Stones, all of which can be described as very tasteful and fitting to his personality.
Serge has started a personal religion based on football coach Don Shula
, where salvation is obtained by successfully eating the 48-ounce steak at Shula's Steakhouse.
Serge appears to be partly inspired by Travis McGee
, a fictional, Florida based, independent "salvage consultant" and crime-solver featured in many novels by John D. McDonald.
. He might age in real time. In Triggerfish Twist
, Serge has turned 35. Nine books later, in Hurricane Punch
, he's 44. Being 44 causes him to go through a midlife crisis, causing him to have a religious awakening, and to go on a come back killing spree.
. He worked as a reader in a cigar factory in Ybor City, but left after his boss disproved of the material he was reading to the other workers. He then ran a bolita
lottery for a local gang. The game was supposed to be fixed, and the gang killed him when he made a mistake in the scheme.
Serge was named after his grandfather Sergio, a con artist who shared some of his grandson's passion for historical trivia. Serigo also seemed to share Serge's sense of ethics, as one of his last major cons involved swindling money from investor who themselves swindled the residents of a farming community in Alabama
. Sergio was thought to have committed suicide when Serge was a child, but during the novel Cadillac Beach
it's discovered that he is still alive. The elder Storms had a heart attack not long after his grandson's 44th birthday, and died after a short stay in hospital.
Storms' father Pablo was a Cuban American
jai alai
player who was more popular for his unpredictability than his skill at the sport; he died when he hurled a pelota that rebounded and struck him forcefully in the head. This occurred when Serge was very young, and left his mother a widowed single mother. She had an affair with another jai alai
player from Spain, which resulted in pregnancy. Since she could barely cope with one child, and had no support from the father (he went back to Spain), she gave up her second son for adoption.
Ford Oelman is Serge's half-brother, the child given up for adoption by his mother. Oelman was raised in Alabama
, and did not find out about the adoption until he was an adult. He was reunited with Sergio when the older man was in Alabama
, but did not meet with Serge until after their grandfather had died. Ford moved to California with his friend Mark to fulfill his ambition of becoming a screen writer.
and Triggerfish Twist
, Serge's companions are a cold-hearted stripper named Sharon Rhodes and an idiotic drug addict named Seymore "Coleman" Bunsen. Both of these characters appear to die in Florida Roadkill
; they both return for the later novel Triggerfish Twist
which takes place sometime during the events of Florida Roadkill
. Coleman returns permanently in Torpedo Juice
, and has been Serge's sidekick in most of the novels since.
While Coleman is presumed dead, Serge travels with Lenny Lipowicz, whom he meets in Hammerhead Ranch Motel
. Lipowicz is a Don Johnson lookalike who is a stoner much like Coleman but slightly (and only slightly) more intelligent. Lenny lives with his mother and her dog, though he frequently leaves the house for days without notifying or contacting her. Aside from Hammerhead Ranch Motel
, Lenny has been in Cadillac Beach
, and The Stingray Shuffle
. He also appeared in "Atomic Lobster
", in which he and Coleman meet and indulge in their shared pathological fondness for marijuana. It's unknown if he will ever return as a character.
Storms ties up a man in a garden shed so that he can stand but not walk. Placing a hula hoop
around the man's waist, Serge soaks the surrounding ground with gasoline
and connects a floodlight
(with the glass removed) to a motion sensor
. Thus, the trap is set: if the man stops twirling the hoop, the motion sensor will activate the floodlight, igniting the gasoline. If the man can maintain the hula hoop's motion for several hours, the gasoline will evaporate
, and he will eventually be rescued. (Needless to say, the victim fails to display the necessary endurance and perishes in the ensuing fire.)Other methods include putting the tube from a can of Fix a Flat down a would be killer's trachea and pushing the trigger, kidnapping a man spying on him and killing him through alchahol poisoning. he inserts a funnel in the man's rectum, pours a liberal ammount of rum into the funnel and into the man's colon, then corking up his victim with a bar of soap. He then releases the victim who runs screaming for help down the street. Because the alchahol is absorbed rapidly through the colon walls, the man quickly becomes increasingly intoxicated, and pedestrians laugh at him as merely being drunk. eventually he is unable to speak or stand, and collapses in an alchahol induced coma, and dies shortly after. His BAC goes from 0.0 to 0.3 in a matter of minutes.
As the series progresses, however, Serge seems to begin to abandon these overly intricate methods. In Torpedo Juice
, he kills a petty mugger
by forcing him to swallow a handful of bullet
s, then subjecting him to a MRI
(leaving police to marvel at a corpse featuring numerous exit wounds but no visible entry wounds). Later in the same novel, however, Serge kills a boorish drunk via the relatively mundane method of kicking him to death. Still later, he fills an obnoxious man's scuba tank
with nitrous oxide
, leading to his death during Serge's underwater wedding (fittingly enough, to the strains of Pink Floyd
's Comfortably Numb
).
In Atomic Lobster
Serge and Coleman are kept very busy in and around Tampa and on a cruise ship as Serge continues to clean up Florida by dispatching many members of the criminal element. Serge employs many innovative methods of terminating Florida low-life using common household items available at neighborhood hardware or sporting goods stores. Serge's methods reflect attention to physics, chemistry and news stories of true crime and popular science.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in most of Tim Dorsey
Tim Dorsey
Tim Dorsey is an American novelist. His writing style is frequently compared to those of Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen . Dorsey's books are crime capers in the Florida style pioneered by John D. MacDonald.-Biography:Dorsey was born in Indiana but moved to Florida at an early age...
's novels (and appears in all of them to date). His name is a pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
on storm surge
Storm surge
A storm surge is an offshore rise of water associated with a low pressure weather system, typically tropical cyclones and strong extratropical cyclones. Storm surges are caused primarily by high winds pushing on the ocean's surface. The wind causes the water to pile up higher than the ordinary sea...
.
In most of Dorsey's books, Storms is in his mid-forties in age. He is described as tall and thin, but muscular, with dark hair shot through with gray.
Serge has been diagnosed with a variety of mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
es, and has been prescribed a "cocktail" of drugs to keep him stable. These are effective, but he often refuses to take them, since he dislikes their effects. Free from the drugs' influence, he quickly becomes manic
Mania
Mania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...
and obsessive
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...
about trivial things; he frequently acts as an extremely eccentric tour guide
Tour guide
A tour guide provides assistance, information and cultural, historical and contemporary heritage interpretation to people on organized tours, individual clients, educational establishments, at religious and historical sites, museums, and at venues of other significant interest...
for whoever happens to be handy. Despite his psychological disorders, Serge is for the most part a charismatic, likeable person (he can be viewed as a somewhat more liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
version of Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was a US satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War II...
's Yossarian
Yossarian
This article is about a "Catch-22" character. For the meerkat from "Meerkat Manor", see List of "Meerkat Manor" meerkats - Yossarian.Capt. John Joseph Yossarian is a fictional character and protagonist in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 and its sequel Closing Time...
). When an event or person offends his extremely strong (and subjective) sense of justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
, however, he can quickly fly into a homicidal
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
rage; he has committed a string of murders for which the police pursue him as a serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
. Serge acts as an independent vigilante who dispenses rough, creative and immediate death penalties for low-life criminals, somewhat in the style of Death Wish (film)
Death Wish (film)
Death Wish is a 1974 crime thriller film loosely based on the novel Death Wish by Brian Garfield. The film was directed by Michael Winner and stars Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, a man who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter is sexually assaulted by muggers.The film was...
(and its sequels) starring Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
.
All aspects of the history of Florida, whether political, ecological, or sociological, are of intense interest to Serge. He is often seized with a sudden urge to visit landmarks, although their significance is frequently personal or related to popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
, rather than historical. Serge usually documents such visits with copious amounts of photographs and keeps a box full of Florida-related memorabilia.
Serge also has a varied taste in music, ranging from modern urban to the Beatles and Stones, all of which can be described as very tasteful and fitting to his personality.
Serge has started a personal religion based on football coach Don Shula
Don Shula
Donald Francis "Don" Shula is a former American football cornerback and coach.He is best known as coach of the Miami Dolphins, the team he led to two Super Bowl victories, and to the National Football League's only perfect season. Shula was named 1993 Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated....
, where salvation is obtained by successfully eating the 48-ounce steak at Shula's Steakhouse.
Serge appears to be partly inspired by Travis McGee
Travis McGee
Travis McGee is a fictional character, created by prolific American mystery writer John D. MacDonald. Unlike most detectives in crime fiction, McGee is neither a police officer nor a licensed private investigator; instead, he is a self-described "salvage consultant" who recovers others' property...
, a fictional, Florida based, independent "salvage consultant" and crime-solver featured in many novels by John D. McDonald.
Age
Serge was born during the Cuban Missile CrisisCuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
. He might age in real time. In Triggerfish Twist
Triggerfish Twist
Triggerfish Twist is the fourth book in Tim Dorsey's as-yet unnamed series of books which were centered on Serge A. Storms. It was published in 2002. The book takes place in the summer of 1997, somewhere in the midst of the events of Florida Roadkill...
, Serge has turned 35. Nine books later, in Hurricane Punch
Hurricane Punch
Hurricane Punch is a novel by Tim Dorsey published in 2007. It follows overly zealous serial killer Serge A. Storms, who is tracking hurricanes all over Florida.-Plot summary:Serge is in therapy, coping with the fact he has turned 44...
, he's 44. Being 44 causes him to go through a midlife crisis, causing him to have a religious awakening, and to go on a come back killing spree.
Family
Storms' Great Great Grandfather came to the US in the 1880s from CubaCuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. He worked as a reader in a cigar factory in Ybor City, but left after his boss disproved of the material he was reading to the other workers. He then ran a bolita
Bolita
Bolita , is a type of lottery which was popular in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries in Cuba and among Florida's working class Hispanic, Italian, and black population. In the basic bolita game, 100 small numbered balls are placed into a bag and mixed thoroughly, and bets are taken on which...
lottery for a local gang. The game was supposed to be fixed, and the gang killed him when he made a mistake in the scheme.
Serge was named after his grandfather Sergio, a con artist who shared some of his grandson's passion for historical trivia. Serigo also seemed to share Serge's sense of ethics, as one of his last major cons involved swindling money from investor who themselves swindled the residents of a farming community in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
. Sergio was thought to have committed suicide when Serge was a child, but during the novel Cadillac Beach
Cadillac Beach
-Plot summary:The year is 1996. At long last, Serge A. Storms has been captured. He is committed to the psychiatric hospital at Chattahoochee, where he patiently tries to explain his views. Serge grows tired of this diversion, however, and escapes once more...
it's discovered that he is still alive. The elder Storms had a heart attack not long after his grandson's 44th birthday, and died after a short stay in hospital.
Storms' father Pablo was a Cuban American
Cuban American
A Cuban American is a United States citizen who traces his or her "national origin" to Cuba. Cuban Americans are also considered native born Americans with Cuban parents or Cuban-born persons who were raised and educated in US...
jai alai
Jai alai
Jai alai is a sport involving a ball bounced off a walled space. It is a variety of Basque Pelota. The term, coined by Serafin Baroja in 1875, is also often loosely applied to the fronton where the sport is played...
player who was more popular for his unpredictability than his skill at the sport; he died when he hurled a pelota that rebounded and struck him forcefully in the head. This occurred when Serge was very young, and left his mother a widowed single mother. She had an affair with another jai alai
Jai alai
Jai alai is a sport involving a ball bounced off a walled space. It is a variety of Basque Pelota. The term, coined by Serafin Baroja in 1875, is also often loosely applied to the fronton where the sport is played...
player from Spain, which resulted in pregnancy. Since she could barely cope with one child, and had no support from the father (he went back to Spain), she gave up her second son for adoption.
Ford Oelman is Serge's half-brother, the child given up for adoption by his mother. Oelman was raised in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, and did not find out about the adoption until he was an adult. He was reunited with Sergio when the older man was in Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, but did not meet with Serge until after their grandfather had died. Ford moved to California with his friend Mark to fulfill his ambition of becoming a screen writer.
Companions
In the books Florida RoadkillFlorida Roadkill
Florida Roadkill is the first book in the unnamed series of books by Tim Dorsey which were centered on his character Serge Storms. It was published in 1999 by William Morrow and Company, an imprint of HarperCollins....
and Triggerfish Twist
Triggerfish Twist
Triggerfish Twist is the fourth book in Tim Dorsey's as-yet unnamed series of books which were centered on Serge A. Storms. It was published in 2002. The book takes place in the summer of 1997, somewhere in the midst of the events of Florida Roadkill...
, Serge's companions are a cold-hearted stripper named Sharon Rhodes and an idiotic drug addict named Seymore "Coleman" Bunsen. Both of these characters appear to die in Florida Roadkill
Florida Roadkill
Florida Roadkill is the first book in the unnamed series of books by Tim Dorsey which were centered on his character Serge Storms. It was published in 1999 by William Morrow and Company, an imprint of HarperCollins....
; they both return for the later novel Triggerfish Twist
Triggerfish Twist
Triggerfish Twist is the fourth book in Tim Dorsey's as-yet unnamed series of books which were centered on Serge A. Storms. It was published in 2002. The book takes place in the summer of 1997, somewhere in the midst of the events of Florida Roadkill...
which takes place sometime during the events of Florida Roadkill
Florida Roadkill
Florida Roadkill is the first book in the unnamed series of books by Tim Dorsey which were centered on his character Serge Storms. It was published in 1999 by William Morrow and Company, an imprint of HarperCollins....
. Coleman returns permanently in Torpedo Juice
Torpedo Juice
Torpedo juice is American slang for an alcoholic beverage, first mixed in World War II, made from pineapple juice and the 180-proof grain alcohol fuel used in United States Navy torpedo motors. Various poisonous additives were mixed into the fuel alcohol by Navy authorities to render the alcohol...
, and has been Serge's sidekick in most of the novels since.
While Coleman is presumed dead, Serge travels with Lenny Lipowicz, whom he meets in Hammerhead Ranch Motel
Hammerhead Ranch Motel
Hammerhead Ranch Motel is a novel by Tim Dorsey published in 2000. It continues the story, started in Florida Roadkill, of blithe psychopath Serge A. Storms and his pursuit of five million dollars in cash hidden in the trunk of a car...
. Lipowicz is a Don Johnson lookalike who is a stoner much like Coleman but slightly (and only slightly) more intelligent. Lenny lives with his mother and her dog, though he frequently leaves the house for days without notifying or contacting her. Aside from Hammerhead Ranch Motel
Hammerhead Ranch Motel
Hammerhead Ranch Motel is a novel by Tim Dorsey published in 2000. It continues the story, started in Florida Roadkill, of blithe psychopath Serge A. Storms and his pursuit of five million dollars in cash hidden in the trunk of a car...
, Lenny has been in Cadillac Beach
Cadillac Beach
-Plot summary:The year is 1996. At long last, Serge A. Storms has been captured. He is committed to the psychiatric hospital at Chattahoochee, where he patiently tries to explain his views. Serge grows tired of this diversion, however, and escapes once more...
, and The Stingray Shuffle
The Stingray Shuffle
The Stingray Shuffle is Tim Dorsey's fifth novel, published in 2003.-Plot summary:Sales of The Stingray Shuffle, a good novel by good novelist Ralph Krunkleton, have soared recently. The book's publishers, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, mount a publicity blitz culminating in a train...
. He also appeared in "Atomic Lobster
Atomic Lobster
Atomic Lobster is the tenth novel by Tim Dorsey. It was released January 27, 2008. It follows overly zealous serial killer Serge A. Storms....
", in which he and Coleman meet and indulge in their shared pathological fondness for marijuana. It's unknown if he will ever return as a character.
Murder Methods
Serge's methods of killing people are frequently quite inventive, and often provide a highly improbable— but technically possible— escape route. As an example, in Triggerfish TwistTriggerfish Twist
Triggerfish Twist is the fourth book in Tim Dorsey's as-yet unnamed series of books which were centered on Serge A. Storms. It was published in 2002. The book takes place in the summer of 1997, somewhere in the midst of the events of Florida Roadkill...
Storms ties up a man in a garden shed so that he can stand but not walk. Placing a hula hoop
Hula hoop
A hula hoop is a toy hoop that is twirled around the waist, limbs or neck.Although the exact origins of hula hoops are unknown, children and adults around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history...
around the man's waist, Serge soaks the surrounding ground with gasoline
Gasoline
Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...
and connects a floodlight
High-intensity discharge lamp
High-intensity discharge lamps are a type of electrical lamp which produces light by means of an electric arc between tungsten electrodes housed inside a translucent or transparent fused quartz or fused alumina arc tube. This tube is filled with both gas and metal salts. The gas facilitates the...
(with the glass removed) to a motion sensor
Motion detection
Motion detection is a process of confirming a change in position of an object relative to its surroundings or the change in the surroundings relative to an object. This detection can be achieved by both mechanical and electronic methods...
. Thus, the trap is set: if the man stops twirling the hoop, the motion sensor will activate the floodlight, igniting the gasoline. If the man can maintain the hula hoop's motion for several hours, the gasoline will evaporate
Evaporation
Evaporation is a type of vaporization of a liquid that occurs only on the surface of a liquid. The other type of vaporization is boiling, which, instead, occurs on the entire mass of the liquid....
, and he will eventually be rescued. (Needless to say, the victim fails to display the necessary endurance and perishes in the ensuing fire.)Other methods include putting the tube from a can of Fix a Flat down a would be killer's trachea and pushing the trigger, kidnapping a man spying on him and killing him through alchahol poisoning. he inserts a funnel in the man's rectum, pours a liberal ammount of rum into the funnel and into the man's colon, then corking up his victim with a bar of soap. He then releases the victim who runs screaming for help down the street. Because the alchahol is absorbed rapidly through the colon walls, the man quickly becomes increasingly intoxicated, and pedestrians laugh at him as merely being drunk. eventually he is unable to speak or stand, and collapses in an alchahol induced coma, and dies shortly after. His BAC goes from 0.0 to 0.3 in a matter of minutes.
As the series progresses, however, Serge seems to begin to abandon these overly intricate methods. In Torpedo Juice
Torpedo Juice (novel)
Torpedo Juice is Tim Dorsey's seventh novel, published in 2005. As with Dorsey's previous works, the main character is amateur Florida historian and serial killer Serge A. Storms.-Plot summary:...
, he kills a petty mugger
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
by forcing him to swallow a handful of bullet
Bullet
A bullet is a projectile propelled by a firearm, sling, or air gun. Bullets do not normally contain explosives, but damage the intended target by impact and penetration...
s, then subjecting him to a MRI
Magnetic resonance imaging
Magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear magnetic resonance imaging , or magnetic resonance tomography is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structures...
(leaving police to marvel at a corpse featuring numerous exit wounds but no visible entry wounds). Later in the same novel, however, Serge kills a boorish drunk via the relatively mundane method of kicking him to death. Still later, he fills an obnoxious man's scuba tank
Diving cylinder
A diving cylinder, scuba tank or diving tank is a gas cylinder used to store and transport high pressure breathing gas as a component of a scuba set. It provides gas to the scuba diver through the demand valve of a diving regulator....
with nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or sweet air, is a chemical compound with the formula . It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colorless non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odor and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anesthetic and analgesic...
, leading to his death during Serge's underwater wedding (fittingly enough, to the strains of Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
's Comfortably Numb
Comfortably Numb
"Comfortably Numb" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, which first appears on the 1979 double album, The Wall. It was also released as a single in the same year with "Hey You" as the B-side. It is one of only three songs on the album for which writing credits are shared between Roger...
).
In Atomic Lobster
Atomic Lobster
Atomic Lobster is the tenth novel by Tim Dorsey. It was released January 27, 2008. It follows overly zealous serial killer Serge A. Storms....
Serge and Coleman are kept very busy in and around Tampa and on a cruise ship as Serge continues to clean up Florida by dispatching many members of the criminal element. Serge employs many innovative methods of terminating Florida low-life using common household items available at neighborhood hardware or sporting goods stores. Serge's methods reflect attention to physics, chemistry and news stories of true crime and popular science.