Rating: 
Summary: Leonard's in top form
Review: Leonard is at his snappy, not-a-word-wasted best in this crime-gone-wrong page-turner. The crime is the murder of the title character, a rich, elderly Detroit crime boss. His resentful assistant, Montez Taylor, who has been written out of the old man's will, organized the hit. When he learns that Mr. Paradiso's "girlfriend," high-priced call girl Chloe, is making an unexpected visit, Montez tries to call it off, but fails.Chloe brings along her friend Kelly, a model, who agrees to help out with a titillating cheerleading routine, and Kelly is upstairs when two gunmen burst in, killing both Chloe and Paradiso. Montez intimidates Kelly into pretending to be Chloe - there's a safety deposit box scam involved - but the nice policeman on the scene, quickly smitten Frank Desla, sees through that pretty quickly. That's the set-up and from there it's just one thing after another in turn after subplot after switchback after double cross in gritty Detroit. Tightly plotted, but character driven, this is as zany, comic and smart as we've come to expect.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite devious
Review: Leonard knows precisely how to sketch the human frailties of his characters. Jack Ryan is the process-server so good at finding people that he's approached by some shady businessmen to locate a woman with a ruinous drinking problem. What's at stake is the money and maybe a chance for something that can pass for love.
Rating:
Summary: More low-life, high-end dialogue from the master.
Review: Leonard strikes again, returning to his home city of Detroit, with dull-witted thugs, scheming lawyers, hot babes and a hero cop. Which movie company has this one optioned? This book's language is amazingly visual, particularly the depiction of a tall, slender model shot dead for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't read it too fast - enjoy it like a rich, buttery dessert.
Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Paradise¿ is a Reader¿s Purgatory
Review: Martin Amis has likened Elmore Leonard to Charles Dickens, but I doubt "Mr. Paradise" was the book to spawn the comparison. Leonard's writing can range from hilarious to just-plain cool, but in his latest novel he seems content to alternate between boring and forced. Leonard's prose is snappy as always, but it's like a high school kid who knows how to mix a good martini-you can't help but admire the facility, but something seems to be missing.... What's mostly missing in "Mr. Paradise" is a plot. In fact, the plot is so stripped down that I can hardly even gloss it here, for fear of spoiling it-suffice it to say there are two very desirable, shallow, and available young woman, an identity switch, a murder, and a hard-boiled, widowed, sensitive-on-the-inside-cop...wait, wait. I may have already said too much. Leonard's characterizations (which, at times in the past, have been cuttingly sharp) are deader on the page here than the book's corpus delicti (one of the aforementioned women whose identity is switched, said switching being, as a plot maneuver, incredibly facile, but as a make-the-reader-confused maneuver it works wonders-the two women are entirely indistinguishable in character and affect (actually, this stays pretty much the same even after one of them is dead). Maybe Leonard is making a trenchant critique of the interchangeability spawned by our consumer culture, but somehow I doubt it. If so, how come the reeking-of-authorial-avatar cop falls so hard for one? (No you dirty birds, not the dead one! (although, come to think of it, that would have gone a long way toward jazzing up the plot). Couple all that with the fact that Elmore Leonard, while he maybe has a handle on cop culture (though I kind of doubt it) just doesn't sound right throwing around terms like "do rag" (neither, in case you're worried I'm getting confused about authorial intent, does his main character). The following conversation, between supposedly-very-dangerous bad guy Montel and fiery-but-cool young Kelley made me cringe in the way I cringe when my parents say "cool." "We're both in style, huh?" (he) pulled the legs of his pants out to each side. "Diesel, one twenty-nine." Kelley pulled the legs of her pants to each side and said "Catherine Malandrino, six-seventy-five. But yours aren't bad." (162) Would even the most fashionable foes really compare pants-price during a high-tension face-off? Maybe not, but it sure sounds cool, doesn't it? In the end, Leonard overdoes it in the smooth department. What's all that smoothness hiding, anyway? Maybe the fact that he's used up all his effective gags, and he's flat out of inspiration.
Rating:
Summary: Smart, funny , wickedly irreverent.
Review: Mr. Paradise is Anthony Paradiso Sr., a wealthy 84 year old criminal attorney. Mr. Paradise pretty much signs his own death warrant the minute he informs Montez, his man friday, that there's been a change of plan. He's decided to bequeath the house to his granddaughter and not to Montez as he had previously promised. But Chloe wasn't supposed to die too. That's Chloe Robinette, a call-girl and Paradiso's favorite playmate. She wasn't supposed to have been there when the hitmen Montez hired came a calling.
Frank Delsa of Detroit Homicide is the lead detective assigned to the case. Frank is a seasoned investigator who displays a presumably rare lapse in professionalism when he becomes involved in an affair with Kelly Bart, Chloe's lingerie model roommate and a key witness to the crime.
This book is a great example of the kind of smart, hip crime writing Elmore Leonard does better than anyone else. His famously pitch-perfect ear for dialogue has never been more acute than it is here. And the reader is introduced to an entertaining and diverse collection of really dumb criminals who keep doing inexplicably dumb things. As the narrative unfolds, Leonard adds in a number of nice touches. Like a flashback scene where Delsa and his late wife, also a cop, confront a pair of thugs in a parking lot.
If there's anything wrong with this book, I couldn't find it. It's great to see that Leonard still has the touch that has made his writing so distinctive and beloved. Mr. Paradise ranks right up there with the Dutchman's best novels. Old fans will love it. For readers new to Leonard, it's a great place to start.
Rating:
Summary: leonard on auto-pilot
Review: Mr. Paradise is bad. The fact is, there are no interesting characters. Leonard, who has dreamed up many memorable ones in the past, comes up glaringly short. I was especially dissapointed with the bad guys. They are usally Leonards trademark, his most exciting characters. Here, they were just stupid. Not cleverly stupid--poorly written stupid. Boring. Instantly forgetable.
Leonard is a master at narrating thoughts, but without any interesting characters, why do we care what they're thinking? He can make even the most outrageous actions seem inevitable, even reasonable. Here they just seem far-fetched. Their actions frequently made no sense. Several times I had to stop and just shake my head.
Usually, I'm looking forward to the final showdown, but not this time. As I expected, it fizzled. Who's gonna win? The good guys...who cares? The bad guys...who cares? I wanted them all to die. By the time I got to the end I was that underwhelmed.
Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite authors. I've read many of his books and enjoyed them all. He writes with control and finesse I can only marvel at. Even the masters, though, put out cheese every once in awhile. This book felt like a rough draft. Like he did it in a hurry and didn't care. Like he's got nothing to prove...I hope not. Hopefully he spends more time on his next work. If you haven't read Elmore Leonard yet, DO NOT START WITH MR. PARADISE. IT SUCKS.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm still waiting for the book to deliver
Review: Mr. Paradise never really hits a high note. The plot is unexceptional and the characters, while interesting enough by any other author's standards, fall short of expectation for an Elmore Leonard novel. There's no suspense in the story at all, and that's probably the biggest disappointment. The Amazon.com review notes that the budding romance between the witness and the detective characters removes any element of suspense that could have attached to her character, and the same holds true for the contents of the safe deposit box, which is the McGuffin of the book. There was a chance to blow the reader away with the reveal of the McGuffin, but ultimately, it ended up being just what everyone thought it was going to be. The dialogue is typically tight and hard boiled. Leonard is a master at capturing the feeling of authenticity by writing the dialogue of lowlifes and cops just right. Unfortunately, that's probably the only highlight to the book.
Rating:
Summary: Topless Cheerleaders and Stupid Bad Guys, Oh My!
Review: Mr. Paradise, real name Anthony Paridiso, is a retired personal injuries attorney. He's eighty-four years old, healthy for his years and he gets his kicks watching video tapes of his favorite Wolverines' football games. Well, he sort of spices up the video with a dancing hooker whose services cost him a paltry five grand a week. But then again there's nothing like a topless cheerleader with a blue M painted between her breasts with a magic marker, especially if she's not wearing any panties underneath her pleated cheerleader skirt. Montez Taylor is Mr. Paradise's chief factotum and gopher. He's black and criminal, a wannabe operator who cruises around the city, acting smooth and slick and he's just been left out of the old man's will. Chloe Robinette is twenty-seven, has a loft on the riverfront she paid $400,000 cash for, back when she hadn't slimmed her client list down to only the spunky Mr. Paradise. Kelly Barr is Chloe's roommate. She's a Victoria's Secret model and just about a dead ringer for blond and blue-eyed Chloe. Chloe recruits Kelly to assist her one night in the cheerleading routine and two hit men hired by Montez, because he's upset about the will thing, crash the party, leaving Paradise and Chloe dead. Fortunately for Kelly she was upstairs with the smooth and slick operator at the time. Montez needs Kelly because Paradiso had signed over some to Chloe that's worth big money and it's lodged in a safe-deposit box in Montez's name. Montez wants Kelly to pose as Chloe, so he can collect on it. Then along comes Homicide detective Frank Delsa who finds himself attracted to Kelly who finds herself attracted to him as well. And so it goes in this rip roaring read that I just loved to pieces. There are many pretenders out there but nobody does Elmer Leonard like Elmer Leonard. He pulls you right into the story, right into the heads of his characters, right out or your problems and cares as you eagerly devour his work and MR. PARADISE is one of his best. Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne
Rating:
Summary: Can't Win 'Em All
Review: Much as I wanted to love this book,it would be a disservice to Leonard to give it more than a "3". He's great and this one isn't. Where's the twist? Where's the "omigod" everything-falls-into-place ending? And yeah, what's Kelly's real agenda?? And why is Frank so stupid over her?? And why did Montez Taylor spend ten years thinking maybe he might get some money from a guy like Paridiso?? None of it makes sense, not even "oh he thought that, so she thought that, so thats why..." Leonard sense!
Rating:
Summary: Still Solid
Review: No, this may not be Leonard's best work, but that isn't a criticism at all. His "average" work outshines nearly any other on the market today, and his dialogue continues to be the
absolute best. When you read what the low-lifes or Detroit
cops are saying in his books, this one included, you can be sure
it is about like being right there in the middle of that conversation. And he makes us feel like we are part of it.
Plus, he has the ability to give us more to think about with his hints of action than most authors can whip up in many chapters of writing.
In this one, the older, retired "Mr. Paradise" gets such a kick
out of watching old U.of M. football games (only the ones they
won of course) on video at home, with a real live bouncing cheerleader adding to his enjoyment, he pays his favorite so
much she can afford to quit all other business, and she becomes
his regular. But in order to liven things up, the regular cheerleader prods her roommate, another beautiful young model,
to join her in a one-time performance.
But Mr. Paradise has a couple of employees who have some ideas
about enjoying some of the wealth, and through a mix-up on dates, when the two roommate cheerleaders are at his home, 2
"workingmen" hit men invade the house to kill Paradise, but
then quickly decide to shoot Chloe, the favorite, just because
she is there and in the way.
Everybody quickly developes a plan of their own on how they might share in the wealth, and one of the household employees
prevails on the surviving roommate, Kelly, to assume the identify of Chloe, so she can claim some big, rich legacy Mr.
Paradise promised her.
But the lead investigator, Frank Delsa, knows something is not
adding up, and he quickly gets some idea what is going on, and
he decides to play along to see just what the scam is. He questions the witnesses and others, and they start acting out their parts, so Frank has to wait a little longer to try to
reel in all the bad guys.
But, of course, he is a lonely widower, and he practically can't
take his eyes off Kelly, so all the while he suspects her of some part in the crime, he fantisizes about what it would be like to have such a beautiful, sensitive creature as his girl-friend.
With that conflict, Elmore is off and running, and he brings in
additional characters, including some very seriously-warped
gangbangers, and the characters slide in and out of the action,
and he keeps us wondering just what part each will play at the
end.
There is plain crime, stupid crime and criminals, off-beat characters, and some loveable characters as well here, and
the author gives us a very nice time while reading this latest book.
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