Swag

Rating:
Summary: ALL SWAGGED UP
Review: After attempting PRONTO and GLITZ and not seeing what the Dutch Leonard hype was all about, I decided to give him one more chance with SWAG...and I was electrified to the point where it almost killed me. This book is incredible. Leonard creates such a glitzy, sleaze-filled atmosphere that you're there in Detroit, with Stick and Frank Ryan, feeling the rush and the tension of their risky escapades for that cold, green swag. The dialogue is right-on; the plot and characters are nothing less than brilliant. This is the book that turned me on to Leonard and his numerous crime-filled novels of shimmering heat and the excitement of being bad.

Rating:
Summary: Elmore's masterpiece
Review: Although it is hard to select Elmore's best work, for my money Swag is the one. Swag is funny, dramatic and tense at the same time. The humor is subtle, but is vintage Elmore. The tension carried thorughout the book is masterful. You really don't know until the final paragraph whether Ryan and Stick will get away or not. All in all, a tremendous book. I would recoomend Swag to any one who has not read any Elmore. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: The best of the best
Review: An earlier novel, not as well known as the Florida books or the Chili Palmer stories, or even "Stick," which features the same main character, "Swag" is my very favorite of the dozen or so Leonard books I've read.

Stick and his partner his upon a novel way to cover the expenses of living: armed-robbery. The system they lay down keeps the scheme running safely for a while, until greed, mistrust and love interfere. Unusual for Leonard, this book is entirely from the criminal point of view, because one of them is the 'hero' as well. Great fun.

Rating:
Summary: It¿s like being in Detroit again...
Review: As a transplanted Detroiter, whenever I need a hometown fix, I read an Elmore Leonard or Loren Estleman novel. This particular Leonard gem, Swag, is especially satisfying. Leonard's characters cruise the streets you've cruised, and encounter people you've met. The premise: car salesman Frank Ryan teams up with Oklahoma cement worker and car thief Ernest Stickley ("Stick") to live the high life, via armed robbery. Frank is the one whose carefully crafted rules allow them to live in luxury, but it's Frank's deviation from the rules that brings about the duo's downfall. The book is a provocative portrait, warts and all, of pre-recession Detroit: before the auto industry collapsed entirely, when Hudson's still had its downtown flagship department store, and before crack infected the streets of the city.

Rating:
Summary: Swag, by Elmore Leonard A great novel.
Review: Before I get into talking about this novel, let me tell you a little bit about myself, my name is Jason Fisher, I am 17 years old, and unofrtunately I am not the kind of person who likes to read, unfortunately. When I was recomended to read this book by one of my teachers, I thought to myself, let me give it a try, so I did. I got the book and let it sit in my room for a few weeks. When I finally picked up the book to read the first few chapters I realized that I could not put the book down, it was an amazing book. I finished the book in one day, and for me that is VERY good. The book is about two men, Stick and Frank, who go in together on a bunch of armed roberies in Detroit to earn some extra cash. They meet some girls, and their lives get much better. When they do their biggest job of all, rob the Hudsons building in Detroit, they run into some trouble in their robbery. You will have to read the book to find out what happens. I would recomend this book to anybody who wants to read a greeat book, Elmore Leonard paints a perfect picture in your head. It is very easy to make the picture in your head if you are from Detriot because it talks about the actual cities, roads, and even some stores that are in the suburbs of Detroit. This was a great book and I am just about to start reading one of his other novels titled "Sitck." Thanks for writing a great book Elmore.

Rating:
Summary: DISCO NOIR
Review: Disco Noir i use this term i got from horror/mystery author Norman Partridge. Written in the seventies, it gives you that odd feeling of freedom, before everyone was hit with such heavy resposabilties, like Aids and drugs, and robbing convince stores all over the Detroit area.

Rating:
Summary: A great crime novel for some great 70's action(bank robbery)
Review: I loved it recomend to anyone a fan of crime novels/thriller

Rating:
Summary: Elmore Leonard's Masterpiece, IMHO
Review: I read this many years ago in the Dutch Treat omnibus edition and re-read it recently. It tells the story of two small time Detroit criminals, Ernest Stickley and Frank Ryan, who embark on a spree of armed robberies. They make a partnership in which they agree to follow "Ryan's Rules" (which has been an alternate title for this novel). They soon break these rules and come to have several misadventures involving botched armed robberies (their own and others they are victims of) double-crosses and department store holdups gone wrong. The action follows non-stop much like a violent video game. There is Leonard's characteristic wry humour: An incompetent stick-up man is relieved of the proceeds of his robbery. He's locked in a storage room with his victims, who proceed to beat him unconscious. Stick and Frank walk away with the money and are in turn robbed in a parking lot. Stick and Frank rob a liquor store where the stubborn senior citizen behind the cash register is willing to die and allow his equally elderly wife to be raped and murdered rather than hand over the hidden money. All this and more while never going over the top and becoming unbelievable. It's possible to empathize with Stickley's predicament. He's basically a good man who does bad things. It is inexplicable to me that this book has not been made into a movie while many lesser Leonard novels have. The Stickley character reappears in the novel Stick, in which it is revealed that Ryan died in prison. That novel, Stick, was made into the 1985 Burt Reynolds movie.

Rating:
Summary: Dutch's best book
Review: If you're an Elmore Leonard fan, and also a boy (or a man with a boy in his heart)... this one, though somewhat forgotten, will please you the best... Typical great Leonard stuff with some real teeth... Most of Leonard's work is popcorn... very good, salty and buttery popcorn, granted... but this one has some depth and you'll catch yourself re-reading it...

Rating:
Summary: Early and excellent Elmore Leonard
Review: In 1992 the Mystery Writers of America made Elmore Leonard a Grand Master; the award "is presented only to individuals who, by a lifetime of achievement, have proved themselves preeminent in the craft of the mystery and dedicated to the advancement of the genre." Perhaps none of his novels better exemplifies why he won this honor than Ryan's Rules (which was later renamed Swag).

Frank Ryan is a mildly honest used car salesman, but he thinks he's come up with a surefire way to get rich quick. So when Ernest Stickley, Jr. tries brazening his way out of the lot after Ryan catches him boosting a car, Frank decides to play dumb at the trial and Stick skips. Ryan explains his plan:

Stick...I'm talking about simple everyday armed robbery. Supermarkets, bars, liquor stores, gas stations, that kind of place. Statistics show--man, I'm not just saying it, the statistics show--armed robbery pays the most for the least amount of risk. Now, you ready for this? I see how two guys who know what they're doing and're businesslike about it,; who're frank with each other and earnest about their work, can pull down three to five grand a week.

And Frank doesn't just have a plan, he also has 10 rules for success and happiness, Ryan's Rules:

1. Always be polite on the job. Say please and thank you. 2. Never say more than necessary. 3. Never call your partner by name--unless you use a made-up name. 4. Dress Well. never look suspicious or like a bum. 5. Never use your own car. (Details to come.) 6. Never count the take in the car. 7. Never flash money in a bar or with women. 8. Never go back to an old bar or hangout once you have moved up. 9. Never tell anyone your business. Never tell a junkie even your name. 10. Never associate with people known to be in crime.

For a while, the two are able to follow the plan and the rules and they are extremely successful. In one of the best bits in the book, they go into a bar and when someone else robs it, they rob the robber. But, inevitably, the rules start falling by the wayside and when they see a chance for a big score, the rules go out the window, with predictably disastrous results.

Elmore Leonard novels can be like popcorn, you start consuming them by the handful, and there is a tendency to experience deja vu if you read too many too close together. I also think he became too dialogue dependent in his middle years, after receiving near universal acknowledgment as the best writer of dialogue in the business. But, perhaps because it was written relatively early in his career, Swag stands out as a great crime novel. Leonard obviously liked it too; he brought Stick back in an eponymous novel, that's also pretty good.

GRADE: A