Bandits

Rating:
Summary: A good book by an (occassionally) hit or miss author
Review: Elmore leonard is a great writer who occassionally has a book that just doesn't fly. Even some of his most popular books fit into that department. BANDITS is one of his best. Read and enjoy. But be warned...It is a character-driven novel and not a plot-driven novel.

Rating:
Summary: If you've never read Leonard, don't start with this one
Review: I had read maybe eight or ten Elmore Leonard novels before I bought this one, and each had been a real page-turner. This one, though, tends to drag well before we're half-way through the book and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's some of the superfluous minor characters, maybe it's that the theme of moral ambiguity gets a little heavy-handed (we already know the Contras are no angels and neither are the Sandinistas), maybe it's the kind of blah ending, I don't know. But something's just a little off here. The dialogue shines through as always, though a little less brilliantly than in, say, "Pagan Babies" or "Swag." The locale just isn't as colorfully drawn as in "Maximum Bob." The bad guys are nowhere near as scary as the pair in "Killshot" (one of my favorites). The plot's thinner than "The Switch" or "Get Shorty." And Leonard handles the religion/morality/what-are-we-here-for thing far better, to my mind, in "Touch."

I'd have to rank this one somewhere around the level of "Be Cool," another one that kind of left me a little indifferent. Put it this way -- it took me the better part of 10 days to get through this one. Leonard's best can be read in just a couple of evenings. Still, Elmore Leonard on his average days is still better than most people writing today on their very best ones.

Rating:
Summary: plan B
Review: Someone, was it you Amazon, single breasted woman with your bow shooting arrows everywhere, recommended after george V higgins died, and I had read everything he wrote and begun collecting his signed firsts, that I try Leonard. This was my first, and while I think not in higgins' league, the king is dead, long live the king, I give it 4 stars and will try a couple more of his titles.