Entertainment Weekly: “The man knows how to grab you — and Pronto is one of the best grabbers in years.”
From the novel:
One evening, it was toward the end of October, Harry Arno said to the woman he’d been seeing on and off the past few years. “I’ve made a decision. I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anybody before in my life.”
Joyce said, “You mean something you did when you were in the war?”
It stopped him. “How’d you know that?”
“When you were in Italy and shot the deserter?”
Harry didn’t say anything, staring at her.
“You already told me about it.”
“Come on. When?”
“We were having drinks at the Cardozo, outside, not long after we started seeing each other again. You said it the same way you did just now, like you’re going to tell me a secret. That’s why I knew. Only I don’t think you said anything about making a decision.”
Riding the Rap(1995)
Now that his mom’s gravy train has derailed, gambling, debt-ridden Palm Beach playboy Warren “Chip” Ganz has decided to take somebody rich hostage — with the help of a Bahamian ex-con, a psycho gardener/enforcer, and the beautiful, if underfed, psychic Reverend Dawn. The trouble is they choose bookmaker Harry Arno as their victim, and Harry can scam with the best. The BIG trouble is ace manhunter U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is sleeping with Harry’s ex-exotic dancer ex-girlfriend, and Joyce wants Harry found. And since nearly everyone has guns, locating and springing the captive bookie most probably can’t happen without some measure of lethal difficulty.
Washington Post: “Leonard remains the uncontested master of the crime thriller. This latest one, ranking up there with his best, secures his hold on the title.”
From the novel:
Ocala Police picked up Dale Crowe Junior for weaving, two o’clock in the morning, crossing the center line and having a busted taillight. Then while Dale was blowing a point-one-nine they put his name and date of birth into the national crime computer and learned he was a fugitive felon, wanted on a three-year-old charge of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Incarceration. A few days later Raylan Givens, with the Marshal Service, came up from Palm Beach County to take Dale back and the Ocala Police wondered about Raylan.
How come if he was a federal officer and Dale Crowe Junior was wanted on a state charge. . . He told them he was with FAST, the Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team, assigned to the Sheriff’s Office in West Palm. And that was pretty much all the marshal said. They wondered too, since he was alone, how he’d be able to drive and keep an eye on his prisoner. Dale Crowe Junior had been convicted of a third-degree five-year felony, Battery of a Police Officer, and was looking at additional time on the fugitive warrant. Dale Junior might feel he had nothing to lose on the trip south. He was a rangy kid with the build of a college athlete, bigger than the marshal in his blue suit and cowboy boots — the marshal calm though, not appearing to be the least apprehensive. He said the West Palm strike team was shorthanded at the moment, the reason he was alone, but believed he would manage.
Out of Sight(1996)
Jack Foley was busting out of Florida’s Glades Prison when he ran head-on into Karen Sisco with a shotgun. Suddenly the world-class gentleman felon was sharing a cramped car trunk with a disarmed federal marshal — whose Chanel suit cost more than the take from Foley’s last bank job — and the chemistry was working overtime. Here’s a lady Jack could fall for in a big way, if she weren’t a dedicated representative of the law that he breaks for a living. And as soon as she escapes, he’s already missing her. But there are some seriously bad men and a major score waiting for Jack in Motown. And there’s a good chance that when his path crosses Karen’s again, she’s going to be there for business, not pleasure.
New York Daily News: “Cool and fun. . . . A sly romance about the missed connections of life, which is also a hell of a comedy crime caper with a fine cast of sociopaths, misfits, and losers.”
From the novel:
From the covered crawl space beneath the prison chapel to the grass just beyond the razor wire perimeter fence. They had been digging since before Christmas with their hands and a broken shovel, using scrap lumber from the construction site of a new wing being added to the chapel to shore up the walls of the tunnel. It was Christmas Day, Foley happen to see Chino and Lulu come out of the ficus bushes in front of the chapel, their faces streaked with black dirt, muck, but wearing clean blues. What were they doing, making out in the bushes? That wasn’t Chino’s style, so Foley the fight fan said, “Don’t tell me about it ‘less you want to.” And Chino said this time to his Anglo friend, “You want to go with us?”
Foley said he didn’t want any part of it — only three feet of crawl space underneath the chapel, pitch-dark in there, maybe run into fucking mole rats face-to-face. No thanks. He’d said to Chino. “Don’t you know you’re digging through Everglades muck? I’ve talked to people. They say it’s wet and’ll cave in on you.” Chino said, yeah, that’s what people thought, but the tunnel only caved in once. . . .
Foley said to Chino that Christmas Day, “If I caught on, how come none of the hacks have?”
Be Cool(1999)
After one triumph and one flop, Mafia loanshark-turned-Hollywood producer Chili Palmer is desperate for another hit . . . of the celluloid sort. And when a similarly relocated former mob associate takes a hit of the bullet-in-the-brain variety while they’re power-lunching, Chili begins to see all kinds of story possibilities. The whacked recording company mogul’s midday demise is leading Chili into the twisted world of rock stars, pop divas, and hip-hop gangstas, which is rife with drama, jealousy, and betrayal — all the stuff that makes big box office. Tinsel Town had better take cover, because Chili Palmer’s working on another movie. And that’s when people tend to die.
Washington Post Book World: “Superior, stunningly alive writing. . . . Be Cool is another boss entry in an incredible body of work.”
From the novel:
The front door of the sedan opened and the guy with the rug got out. A wiry little guy fifty or so wearing some Korean girl’s hair so he’d look younger. Chili felt sorry for him, the guy not knowing the rug made him look stupid. Somebody ought to tell him, and then duck. He looked like the kind of little guy who was always on the muscle, would take anything you said the wrong way. Chili saw him looking toward Swingers no, staring. Then saw him raise both hands, Christ, holding a revolver, a nickelplate flashing in the sunlight, the guy extending the gun in one hand now, straight out at arm’s length as Chili yelled, “Tommy!” Loud but too late. The guy with the rug was firing at Tommy, squeezing them off like he was on a target range, the sound of gunfire hitting the air hard, and all at once here were screams, chairs scraping, people throwing themselves to the ground as the plate glass shattered behind Tommy still in his chair, head down, broken glass all over him, in his hair. . . Chili saw the guy with the rug standing there taking in what he had done. Saw him turn to the car, the door still open, and put his hand inside on the windowsill. But now he took time to look this way, to stare at Chili. Took a good look before he got in and drove the car off.
Pagan Babies(2000)
Father Terry Dunn thought he’d seen everything on the mean streets of Detroit, but that was before he went on a little retreat to Rwanda to evade a tax-fraud indictment. Now the whiskey-drinking, Nine Inch Nails T-shirt-wearing padre is back trying to hustle up a score to help the little orphans of Rwanda. But the fund-raising gets complicated when a former tattletale cohort pops up on Terry’s tail. And then there’s the lovely Debbie Dewey. A freshly sprung ex-con turned stand-up comic, Debbie needs some fast cash, too, to settle an old score. Now they’re in together for a bigger payoff than either could finagle alone. After all, it makes sense . . . unless Father Terry is working a con of his own.
Entertainment Weekly: “Wildly entertaining.”
From the novel:
The church had become
a tomb where forty-seven bodies turned to leather and stains had been lying on the concrete floor the past five years, though not lying where they had been shot with Kalashnikovs or hacked to death with machetes. The benches had been removed and the bodies reassembled: men, women and small children laid in rows of skulls and spines, femurs, fragments of cloth stuck to mummified remains, many of the adults missing feet, all missing bones that had been carried off by scavenging dogs.
Since the living world no longer enter the church, Fr. Terry Dunn heard confessions in the yard of the rectory, in the shade of the old pines and silver eucalyptus trees.
“Bless me, Fatha, for I have sin. It has been two months from the last time I come to Confession. Since then I am fornicating with a woman from Gisenyi three times only and this is all I have done.”
They would seem to fill their mouths with the English words pro-nounc-ing each one carefully, with an accent Terry believed was heard only in Africa. He gave fornicators ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys, murmured what passed for an absolution while the penitent said the Act of Contrition, and dismissed them with a reminder to love God and sin no more.
“Fire in the Hole”(2001)
In Elmore Leonard’s first original e-book, U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (featured in Pronto and Riding the Rap) returns to the eastern Kentucky coal-mining country of his youth. When Boyd Crowder, a mail-order-ordained minister who doesn’t believe in paying his income taxes, decides to blow up the IRS building in Cincinnati, Givens is asked by the local marshal to intervene. This sets up an inevitable confrontation between two men on opposite sides of the law who still have a lingering respect for each other. Throw into the mix Boyd’s sister-in-law, Ava, who carries a torch for Raylan along with a deer rifle, and you’ve got a funny, adrenaline-charged story only Elmore Leonard could have written.
Book Page: “’Fire in the Hole,’ is classic Leonard, even if the medium is not.”
From the story:
They had dug coal together as young men and then lost touch over the years. Now it looked like they’d be meeting again, this time as lawman and felon, Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder.
Boyd did six years in a federal penitentiary for refusing to pay his income tax, came out and found religion. He received his ordination by mail order from a Bible college in South Carolina and formed a sect he called Christian Aggression. The next thing he did, Boyd formed the East Kentucky Militia with a cadre of neo-Nazi skinheads, a bunch of boys wearing Doc Martens and swastika tattoos. They were all natural-born racists and haters of authority, but still had to be taught what Boyd called “the laws of White Supremacy as laid down by the Lord,” which he took from Christian Identity doctrines. Next thing, he trained these boys in the use of explosives and automatic weapons. He told them they were now members of Crowder’s Commandos, sworn to take up the fight for freedom against the coming Mongrel World Order and the govermint’s illegal tax laws.
Tishomingo Blues(2002)
Daredevil Dennis Lenahan has brought his act to the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino in Tunica, Mississippi — diving off an eighty-foot ladder into nine feet of water for the amusement of gamblers, gangsters, and luscious belles. His riskiest feat, however, was witnessing a Dixie-style mob execution while atop his diving platform. Robert Taylor saw the hit also. A blues-loving Detroit hustler touring the Southland in a black Jaguar, Taylor’s got his own secret agenda re the “Cornbread Cosa Nostra,” and he wants Dennis in on the game. But there’s a lot more in Robert Taylor’s pocket than a photo of his lynched great-grandfather. And high-diver Dennis could be about to take a long, fatal fall — right into a mess of hoop skirts, Civil War playacting . . . and more trouble than he ever dreamed possible.
Entertainment Weekly: “God bless Elmore Leonard. Grade A.”
Detroit Free Press: “Elmore Leonard is back at his sly, finger-popping best.”
Los Angeles Times Book Review: “Tishomingo Blues is typical Elmore Leonard. Who could ask for anything more?
From the novel:
Newton Hoon sat in his trailer with a jelly glass of bourbon watching the news: that little TV girl with the two last names in the woods showing where James Rein and Eugene Dean had shot each other, saying both men were from Tunica but nothing about Rose.
There she was now in the glade saying this was where Arlen Novis, former Tunica County sheriff’s deputy, and Detroit realtor Germano Mularoni staged their duel, calling them reenactors in a senseless confrontation of views that resulted in each man’s death. Oh, is that right? No mention of Walter. No mention of the smoke or the two greasers — Newton thinking of the one he’d asked that time where the nigger was and the one said he’d gone to fuck your wife. It had set him off, sure, even knowing it wasn’t true. One, Myrna wasn’t ever home, she played bingo every night of her life. And two, not even a smoke’d want to fuck her, Myrna going four hundred pounds on the hoof. Try and find the wet spot on her.
When the Women Come Out to Dance(2002)
In this collection of short fiction, Elmore Leonard demonstrates the superb characterizations, dead-on dialogue, vivid atmosphere, and driving plotting that have made him a household name. And once more, this master of crime illustrates that the line between the law and the lawbreakers is not as firm as we might think.
Federal Marshall Karen Sisco, from the bestselling novel Out of Sight, returns in “Karen Makes Out,” once again inadvertently mixing pleasure with business. In “Fire in the Hole,” Raylan Givens, last seen in Riding the Rap and Pronto, meets up with an old friend, but they’re now on different sides of the law. In the title story, “When the Women Come Out to Dance,” Mrs. Mahmood gets more than she bargains for when she conspires with her maid to end her unhappy marriage. In all nine stories — each unique in its own right — reluctant heroes and laid-back lowlifes struggle for power, survival, and their fifteen minutes of fame.
Vivid, hilarious, and unfailingly human, these stories ring true with Elmore Leonard’s signature deadpan social observations and diabolical eye for the foibles of the good guys and the bad.
Contains: “Sparks”; “Hanging Out at the Buena Vista”; “Chisaw Charlie Hoak”; “When the Women Come Out to Dance”; “Fire in the Hole”; “Karen Makes Out”; “Hurrah for Capt. Early”; “The Tonto Woman”; “Tenkiller”
From the collection:
“Hanging Out at the Buena Vista”
They lived in a retirement village of cottages set among palm trees and bougainvillea, maids driving golf carts. The woman, Natalie, wore silk scarves to cover what was left of her hair, a lavender scarf the afternoon Vincent appeared at her door. He told her through the screen he thought it was time they met. She said from the chair she sat in most of the day, “It’s open,” closed the book she was reading, a finger inside holding the page, and watched him come in in his khaki shorts and T-shirt.
“You didn’t have to get dressed up on my account.”
She liked his smile and the way he said, “I was right. I’ve found someone I can talk to.”
“About what?”
“Anything you want, except golf.”
“You’re in luck. I don’t play golf.”
“I know you don’t. I checked.”
She liked his weathered look, his cap of white hair, uncombed. “You’re here by yourself?”
“On my own, the first time in fifty-seven years.”
She laid the book on the table next to her. “So now you’re what, dating?”
He liked the way she said it, with a straight face.
“If you’re interested, Jerry Vale’s coming next week.”
“I can hardly wait.”
He said, “I like the way you wear your scarves. You’ve got style, kiddo.”
“For an old broad? You should see me in a blond wig.”
“A woman can get away with a good one. But you see a rug on a guy, every hair in place? You can always tell.”
“That’s why you don’t comb your hair?” Again with the straight face. He sho
ok his head.
“I made a decision,” Vincent said. “No chemo, no surgery. Why bother? I’m eighty years old. You hang around too long, you end up with Alzheimer’s, like Howard. You know Howard? He puts on a suit and tie every day and calls on the ladies. Has no idea where he is.”
“Howard’s been here. But now I think he and Pauline are going steady. Pauline’s the one with all the Barbie dolls.” Natalie paused and said, “I’ll be eighty-two next month.”
“You sure don’t look it.”
“Not a day over, what, seventy-five?”
“I’ll tell you something,” Vincent said. “You’re the best-looking woman here, and that’s counting the maids and the ones that pass for nurses. Some are okay, but they all have big butts. You notice that? Hospitals, the same thing. I’ve made a study: The majority of women who work in health care are seriously overweight.”
The Westerns
The Bounty Hunters(1953, the first Elmore Leonard novel)
The old Apache renegade Soldado Viejo is hiding out in Mexico, and the Arizona Department Adjutant has selected two men to hunt him down. One — Dave Flynn — knows war, the land, and the nature of his prey. The other is a kid lieutenant named Bowers. But there’s a different kind of war happening in Soyopa. And if Flynn and his young associate choose the wrong allies — and the wrong enemy — they won’t be getting out alive.
The Independent (London): “One of the most successful Western writers of his day . . . Leonard’s career as a novelist began with The Bounty Hunters.”