Rating: 
Summary: Great Read!
Review: Be Cool is a masterpiece. In a way it's a sequel to Elmore Leonard's GET SHORTY, which I never read, but that's mainly because SHORTY's seedy movie producer, Chili Palmer, is back (For those of you who saw the movie, Chili is the Travolta character).Be Cool has a plot which I don't think I can explain right now. Not because it's complicated, but because it's 10:15 at night right now. What I can tell you is that Chili is having lunch with a record producer and gets up to go to the bathroom. When he comes back, he witnesses the producer getting shot down. He begins to start working on the treatment to a movie involving this incident as well as the life of Linda Moon, a singer who's band Odessa is a perfect example of today's struggling musicians. As Chili works on his movie, a group of people want him dead for various reasons. Raji, the Kangol-wearing pimp who has Linda under contract, wants him dead because he convinced Linda to quit the band International Chicks, a band which did cover songs which Raji profitted off. Then the Russian mob wants him dead because he knows incriminating facts about the killer of the record producer. It's a lot of fun and you won't be able to put it down. This is a very small price to pay for such a fantastic read.
Rating: 
Summary: Leonard's novels ore page turners like no else
Review: Elmore Leonard makes me turn pages faster than anything I've read. I am a fan of Hunter Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Bukowski, WS Burroughs so Leonard lacks one thing FOR ME: substance. His books are PURE entertainment. And there is nothing wrong with that. I read his books in two or three nights. I DEVOUR them. Characters are great, story is unique and thrilling, and dialogue is crisp, like no other ever! He is the king of the crime novel. But don't look for any theme or motif really,because there isn't one. EL never pretended to have this though, he is just a great writer. Just light reading for me and extremely entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Difference of Opinion
Review: I was amazed to see that Be Cool's average rating is 3 stars. I think it is one of Leonard's funniest, most insightful, and best.
Rating: 
Summary: Tried Leonard again, same result
Review: I read Elmore Leonard's "Bandits" 10 years ago, and thought it wwas one of the worst novels I'd ever read. Everyone says try something else, so on a recommendation, I read "Be Cool". It was the same for me. There was no plot, no suspense, and no character development. This is definitely my last Elmore Leonard novel. I honestly don't know how anyone could enjoy his books.
Rating: 
Summary: Not very interesting...
Review: I'm a big fan of Leonard's, yet I found this book, sort of, well, boring. The Characters were as vivid as ever, but I felt myself comparing them constantly to similar characters in his other books. The plot seemed a bit contrived and there was no real tension in the book... none. You know Chili is the baddest dude, so you know he'll be able to get away from all the baddies. No secret there. We get a little insight into the music biz, but not enough to make us believe we're privy to anything new. I think it might be a good book for those who haven't read a lot of his stuff (which will be the case since its a sequel to Get Shorty), but I found the Pronto/Riding the Rap books more interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as previous Leonard novels...
Review: Elmore Leonard, my favorite beach novelist, has put out another Chili Palmer novel (of "Get Shorty" fame). Not as either believable or as rip-roaringly funny as Get Shorty was.... Be Cool follows Chili into the music industry in California. The sequel to his famous movie (called, "Get Leo" in this book, although why, I don't know... we all know it's Get Shorty) was a bust, so he is onto searching for another story-line for another movie. As Elmore Leonard novels go, I thought this one was fairly weak... Leonard seemed out of his familiar surroundings and I miss, frankly, the bare-faced shysters, the loan sharks, the semi-mafiosos and the slick con-men of most of his other books. This novel didn't have the same wonderful surprising twists and turns... Chili's relationship with Elaine seemed forced, Linda Moon started out with some promise but Leonard is so busy trying to develop other characters (like the bizarre, huge Samoan homosexual body-guard) that we never feel we've completely 'gotten into' any of the characters. I will give Leonard a lot of credit however, for continuing to be the best at plot manipulation... how he has Chili manage the police, the Russian mafia, the record industry mafia, and just about everyone else so that he emerges with the usual clean nose, is a tribute to Leonard's abilities to think and write so complexly.
Rating:
Summary: Two Opposing Mirrors
Review: Meet Ernesto Palmair aka Chili Palmer. In Get Shorty, Leonard chronicled how this former shylock(and still movie buff) arose from a web of lowlifes and Z-movie producers to score a bonafide hit with his first film as a holywood producer, Get Leo. The events of Be Cool start after Palmer had produced the sequel to that film, Get Lost, which was a flop. Elmore Leonard constantly walks the thin line that seperates parody and realism. It is a dangerous highwire act performed by a seasoned and skilled professional. Chili Palmer is the eptiome of that balance, he is infinitly cool yet retains a certain vulnerable humanity. A producer of two films now, Palmer is no longer the fish out of water he was in Get Shorty where his no nonsense, straight for the Jugular approach to film production earned him his success. What is Leonard to do then send him to another induxtry, the music industry perhaps. Here is Chili Palmer's theory on the workings of the record industry : "I have a hunch, there aren't any rules to speak of. You go for whatever you can get away with, threaten a couple of times to walk out and see if they'll throw in some perks.Am I close?" We get the feeling that he is pretty close. Leonard doesn't write plot, he writes characters and observes their interaction. In the same way as Chili Palmer glides through the record business he observes all the characters he meets in hope of making a movie out his adventures. Like Robert Altman's film The Player there is the preverse suggestion that the lead character is infact the author/director, and that the film and the book are exposes. This is joke, but its a good one. I'm sure that at least on some level Leonard intended Be Cool to be a parody of Get Shorty, an obsevation on the nature of sequels. But did he really have give us what amounts to a lesser retread of the original. There is even an exact re-enactment of the balcony scene in Get Shorty where Chili has to humour the bad guys body guard for help. Be Cool is a difficult novel to review because there is nothing particulary wrong with it, yet nothing remarkable either. It is like a mirror held up to the original, and it left me wondering why I wasn't reading Get Shorty again instead. In that one, Palmer had not proved himself, and it was a hoot to see a loan shark making it in the film industry. He hasn't lost his anything in Be Cool, but this time we're not surprised he could do it. It is ironic that when Chili Palmer thinks the events around him are too lame to go into his script, he suggests "scooter could spice it up". Scooter ofcourse is the screenwriter. Having enjoyed the terrific 1995 film of Get Shorty, I still think that some "scooter" could take Leonards wonderful dialogue and use it to serve a better and more complex plot. Be Cool could still make a good film. Chili Palmer certainly agrees.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Flat...
Review: This, the sequel to "Get Shorty," takes Chili Palmer from the world of film to the music industry. Although one of the book's themes is a very self-conscious attempt to comment on the nature of sequels, it falls pretty flat since it's just not that good. The behind the scenes music stuff comes off as very cliché and dated, and just doesn't work very well. There is the usual cast of wacky Leonard characters, some more entertaining than others--but as I feel about other of his books, wackiness alone doesn't cut it.
Rating:
Summary: Get Shorty it's not but still a great read
Review: I couldn't wait for more Chili Palmer and this fills the bill. It's not as good but I really like Leonard's writing style and bizarre humor. A great read for vacation. won't make you think too much but will entertain you.
Rating:
Summary: It's cool alright, just not a classic
Review: Leonard never really writes sequels, he just writes books with the same characters in occasionally. A prime example is The Switch and Rum Punch, with some fantastic characterisation and clever plots. For Be Cool, the characters are there, but the plot isn't quite so finely-tuned. It's as if Leonard wanted to use Chili Palmer again, so just stuck him in the music business this time. But no matter what plot there is, the dialogue always sparkles, and this book is no exception, all wrapped up in some very funny set-pieces. It's still as bizarre as ever, with baseball-bat wielding Samoans and rug-wearing Russians, the eccentricity that really sets Leonard apart from all the rest. Be Cool is as cool as ever, if not quite classic Leonard.
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