The first time I tried to write a serious story, everyone thought it was hilarious. Right then I decided that I should lean into my strength and stick with comedy. I’ve written comedy screenplays for Hollywood and video games chockful full of comedy. I was even nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award for one of them. (Red Alert 3 starring Tim Curry, Jonathon Pryce, George Takei, Peter Stormare, and J.K. Simmonds.) So when I decided to write novels, I decided to write what I love to read. Comedy Thrillers. Good ones are hard to find. And laughter is good for us all.
One of the first comedy thrillers I ever read. And one of the best. The Hot Rock features John Archibald Dortmunder. A guy with brains, but no luck. Though the failure of some of his jobs might have more to do with his crew. A collection of loveable losers who you can’t help but root for. The overly optimistic Andy Kelp. Stan Murch who lives with his mom in Canarsie. Man mountain Tchotchkus Bulcher. They’re all after a valuable gem in the Brooklyn Museum and manage to steal it and lose it and steal it and lose it and steal it and…well, you get the idea. Westlake does an amazing job of keeping the thrills thrilling and the comedy crackling all the way through. Something I aspire to do in my own work.
Edgar Award Finalist: A comical crime caper “filled with action and imagination” (The New York Times Book Review). John Dortmunder leaves jail with ten dollars, a train ticket, and nothing to make money on but his good name. Thankfully, his reputation goes far. No one plans a caper better than Dortmunder. His friend Kelp picks him up in a stolen Cadillac and drives him away from Sing-Sing, telling a story of a $500,000 emerald that they just have to steal. Dortmunder doesn’t hesitate to agree. The emerald is the crown jewel of a former British colony, lately granted independence and…
I started with Elmore Leonard’s amazing westerns, but it was crime novels that really blew me away. He created the most surprising, vivid, weird, hilarious, and human characters.Maximum Bob is one of his best. He’s kind of modern Roy Bean, handing out insanely harsh sentences to the denizens of South Florida. His wife Leanne is a new-age nutcase who believes she is possessed by the ghost of a young slave girl. In a conversation with Martin Amis, Leonard talked about how it all starts with character for him. Each character auditions with their first conversation. Either they can talk or not and if they can’t, they’re out. Maximum Bobcan talk.
The New York Times bestselling author of Be Cool and Get Shorty
When someone delivers an alligator to Judge Bob Gibbs' porch, there's no shortage of suspects - hard-sentencing, womanising redneck 'Maximum Bob' is pretty much the most unpopular man in Florida.
Throw into the mix the Crowe clan - about as primitive and aggressive as any alligator - a doped-up doctor on early release with a tag, quick-witted probation officer Kathy Baker, a mermaid and a long-dead slave girl called Wanda, and things get a tad complicated. And inevitably, they don't work out the way you might expect...
It was hard to pick just one book from the Hiaasen oeuvre. So I’ll pick the last one I read. Which I happen to think is one of his best. (Aren’t you impressed I used the word oeuvre?) Hiaasen creates very relatable characters who find themselves in insane situations. Though often the characters are just as crazy. In this case, he has fun with a badass female wildlife wrangler and a monstrous Burmese Python with a taste for Palm Beach high society. (What is it about Florida that makes it so perfect for comedy thrillers?) Squeeze Me also touches on the absurdity of our current political climate. Bottom line, it’s just flat out funny.
'One of the world's funniest novelists' SUNDAY TIMES
'Scabrous and unrelentingly hilarious . . . the Trump era is truly Carl Hiaasen's moment' WASHINGTON POST
From the highly acclaimed author of Bad Monkey and Razor Girl comes this hilarious new novel of social and political intrigue, set against the glittering backdrop of Florida's gold coast.
It's the height of the Palm Beach charity ball season: for every good cause, there's a reason for the local luminaries to eat (minimally), drink (maximally), and be seen. But when prominent high-society dowager Kiki Pew suddenly vanishes during a swanky gala, and is later…
Again, it’s difficult to pick a favorite Vonnegut book. I think he may have influenced my writing more than any other author. More than Ian Fleming. More than Elmore Leonard or Raymond Chandler. Some might say he isn’t really a thriller writer. Some may classify him as a writer of sci-fi. And yeah, maybe. But he’s so much more than that. He’s a zany magician and mad scientist who can turn utter tragedy into very black comedy. Mother Night is about Nazis and spies and war crimes and white supremacists. All the elements of a thriller combined with Vonnegut’s patented absurdity. I find every one of Kurt Vonnegut’s books thrilling, thoughtful, and hilarious.
“Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer . . . a zany but moral mad scientist.”—Time
Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.
I had a heck of a time narrowing this list down to five books. There are other comedy thrillers I had to set aside, but perhaps I’ll include them in a future list. The main character of my novel James Flynn has been described as cross between James Bond and Serge Storm, the driving force ofFlorida Roadkill. The comparison comes from the fact that Serge Storm is legally insane and medicated most of the time, but not all the time. He is endearing and hilarious and a killer. But he only takes out those who deserve it. His crew is just as crazy as he is and so are his enemies, real and imagined. Serge wasn’t as much of an inspiration for me as Don Quixote, but he was definitely an inspiration.
If you like your humour dark and twisty, then you'll love Tim Dorsey's outrageous Serge Storms series of crime novels. Introducing Serge Storms, America's most cheerful serial killer. Local trivia buff Serge loves eliminating jerks and pests. His drug-addled partner Coleman loves cartoons. Hot stripper Sharon Rhodes loves cocaine, especially when purchased with rich dead men's money. On the other hand, there's Sean and David, who love fishing and are kind to animals and who are about to cross paths with a suitcase filled with stolen insurance money. Serge wants the suitcase. Sharon wants the suitcase. Coleman wants more drugs…
James Flynn believes the locked ward of his mental hospital is the headquarters of Her Majesty's Secret Service and that he is a secret agent with a license to kill.
When the hospital is acquired by a new HMO, Flynn is a convinced that the Secret Service has been infiltrated by the enemy. He escapes to save the day and carjacks a young orderly named Sancho. This crazy day trip turns into a very real adventure when Flynn is mistaken for an actual secret agent. Paranoid delusions have suddenly become reality, and now it's up to a mental patient and a terrified orderly to bring down an insecure, evil genius bent on world domination.
Growing up in New England, my mother had a set of books that she kept in the living room, more for display than anything else. It was The Works of Edgar Allen Poe. I read them and instantly became hooked on horror. In the seventh grade, I entertained my friends at a sleepover by telling them the mysterious clanking noise (created by the baseboard heater) was the ghost of a woman who had once lived in the farmhouse, forced to cannibalize her ten children during a particularly bad winter. And I’ve been enjoying scaring people ever since.
In 1939, on a remote Pacific island, botanical researcher Irene Greer plunged off a waterfall to her death, leaving behind a legacy shrouded in secrets. Her great-niece Julia, a struggling journalist recovering from a divorce, seeks answers decades later.
Tasked with retrieving Dr. Greer’s discovery–a flower that could have world-changing properties–Julia unearths a story rife with hidden agendas and a missionary community unwilling to share the truth. As she confronts the eerie legends and a fellow traveler with his own motives, Julia finds that the longer she stays, the thinner the line between reality and the fantastical becomes until she…
From the award-winning author of Dead Souls and Poe comes an all-new bone-chilling novel where a mysterious island holds the terrifying answers to a woman's past and future.
In 1939, on a remote Pacific island, botanical researcher Irene Greer plunges off a waterfall to her death, convinced the spirits of her dead husband and daughter had joined the nightmarchers-ghosts of ancient warriors that rise from their burial sites on moonless nights. But was it suicide, or did a strange young missionary girl, Agnes, play a role in Irene's deteriorating state of mind?
