Tim Dorsey

Timothy Alan Dorsey (January 25, 1961 – November 26, 2023) was an American novelist. He is known for a series starring Serge A. Storms, a mentally disturbed vigilante antihero who rampages across Florida enforcing his own moral code against a variety of low-life criminals.

Biography

Tim Dorsey was born in Carmel, Indiana, and was taken to Florida by his mother at the age of 1. He grew up in Riviera Beach, a small town in Palm Beach County just north of West Palm Beach. Dorsey graduated from Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, N.H., in 1979.

Dorsey attended Auburn University, where he became the editor of The Auburn Plainsman, the student newspaper; he wrote about racism while at Auburn. Dorsey graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor's degree in Transportation. After graduation, he moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and served as a police reporter for a local newspaper. In 1987, Dorsey relocated to Tampa, Florida, and became a reporter for The Tampa Tribune. Until he resigned from the paper in 1999 to write full-time, he worked variously as political reporter, correspondent in the Tribune's Tallahassee bureau, copy desk editor, and, finally, night metro editor and news coordinator.

Dorsey lived in Tampa with his wife and two daughters and was a Tampa Bay Rays fan. He also still considered himself a Boston Red Sox fan, cultivated while attending high school in New Hampshire as a teen.

Dorsey died in Islamorada, Florida, on November 26, 2023, at the age of 62.

Serge Storms

Most of Dorsey's novels feature Serge A. Storms as the primary character. The character has several coexisting mental illnesses that render him obsessive, psychopathic, schizophrenic, and frequently homicidal, but Storms serves as the anti-hero in Dorsey's works due to his strong sense of moral absolutism and justice. Serge is intelligent, and frequently devises wildly inventive ways of condemning villains (or at least who he perceives as such) to death. His co-pilot in the majority of his adventures is Coleman, whose personality is the exact opposite of Serge. Whereas Serge is a high-strung straight-edged coffee addict, Coleman is an alcoholic drug user who goes to extreme lengths to maintain his buzz.

Short stories and Essay collections by Tim Dorsey

Florida Roadkill: A Survival Guide (2010)

Squall Lines: Selected articles & essays (2012) ISBN 978-1-47-925806-2

Tropical Warning: An Original Serge Storms Story and Other Debris (2013)