Serge A. Storms is the main character in most of Tim Dorsey's novels. His name is a pun on storm surge. Serge is mentally deranged, and has been prescribed a "cocktail" of drugs to keep him stable. These work, but he often refuses to take them, and winds up becoming an extremely eccentric tour guide for whoever happens to be handy. His specialty is Florida history at any level. His natural tendency is to be kind and benevolent, but he sometimes becomes murderous without warning, and is classified as a serial killer. Serge's methods of killing people are frequently quite inventive, and often provide a highly improbable--but technically possible--escape route. An example from Triggerfish Twist involves him tying up a man so he can stand, but not walk, putting a hula hoop around him, pouring gasoline on the ground around him, and hooking up a floodlight--with the glass cut off--to a motion sensor. If he stops hula hooping, the motion sensor will go on, and the floodlight will come on. This will ignite the gasoline and kill him. If the man can keep the hula hoop going long enough, the gasoline will evaporate.

Serge's original partners at the beginning of the series were a hooker named Sharon and Seymore "Coleman" Bunsen, who are later replaced by Lenny Lipowicz.