No Sunscreen for the Dead

Bestseller Dorsey’s superior 22nd crime novel featuring vigilante serial killer Serge Storms (after 2018’s The Pope of Palm Beach) takes Serge and his stoner pal, Coleman, to an area of Florida that Serge has dubbed the Retirement Coast, where they encounter several locals who have been ripped off by unscrupulous salesmen. Serge takes it upon himself to get the victims their money back, while satisfying his own bloodlust by disposing of the con men with creative Rube Goldbergian devices. Meanwhile, Benmont Pinch, an employee of Life-Armor, a security company that both protects and invades privacy through its collection and use of personal data, is troubled by a disturbing pattern in a client’s request for a list of “adjoining Social Security entries with the same birthday” for people who are not twins. That pattern may connect with a series of murders of retirees, and whatever it is that panics high-ups at FBI headquarters in a cryptic prologue. Dorsey ties the two plot lines together logically, offering another successful blend of the funny and the fiendish. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber. (Jan.)