Pineapple Grenade

Bestseller Dorsey dishes up his Miami mayhem with a side order of mordant wit in his 15th Serge Storms novel (after 2011’s When Elves Attack). This time, Serge dresses up in a homemade superhero costume (his stoner sidekick, Coleman, is the Human Torch) and designs unique ways to kill the miscreants who blight Florida, like vaporizing their internal organs with liquid nitrogen and a turkey baster. Serge’s other campaign—to get hired as a spy—turns dangerous when it sets two competing but equally corrupt CIA bureaus on his tail, while gunrunning, oil spills, political spin, and a touch of romance complicate the dizzying plot still further. The varied locations—Biscayne Bay’s “Stiltsville” houses, the Charles Deering estate, the airport from which Amelia Earhart’s final flight took off—are real but no less offbeat. Though the book’s formula will be familiar to series fans, neither Dorsey’s fast-paced prose nor his delight in skewering human foolishness has lost its mischievous sparkle. 8-city author tour. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber. (Feb.)