I've read many of Elmore Leonard's crime novels and tend to prefer those with a Detroit setting. E.L.'s got a cool detachment when it comes to representin' motown. Clearly he loves the music, the grit, the people who inhabit the city and yet--despite that love--he never moves into the "love affair" territory with the D. He understands that a strip club's still a strip club. Two-bit hustlers are still two-bit hustlers. But, in Leonard's Detroit, oh what fun all that goes down at those clubs...and oh the things that come out of the mouths of those hustlers.
Recently finished E.L.'s Pronto, which eschews the D for Miami and the Italian Riviera. Not his best work, but Harry Arno makes an odd Leonard protagonist (and a more interesting one than, say, Chili Palmer). Pronto revolves around Arno's feud with the mobsters he's been bilking and the feds who set him up. Arno's enough of a confident, smart alecky crook that you can't help but dig his style. Yet as you get to know some of the folks in Arno's world, you like Arno himself less and less. Notice how your attitude toward Arno's relationship with his girlfriend Joyce changes as the plot speeds along. I'll keep Rum Punch and Pagan Babies at the top of my Elmore Leonard list, but Pronto will do if you've read those two already. Nicole and I are working through some LEonard short stories, too, which are also interesting and also not his best work.
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