Having read most US noir out there, I'd somehow avoided Leonard. I think I was put off by my disappointment at Tarantino's Jackie Brown. This is a fantastic novel, though. It has the punch of the best crime writers, but unlike, say, George Pelecanos, there's less of a generic feel to his work. You sense that his other novels will offer a slightly different narrative structure and that the storylines will stay with you a little longer than those of most genre fiction. Thus some weighty themes emerge from this work beyond those of criminality and justice: growing old, trust, race, fulfilment. The book also makes me want to revisit Tarantino's film. I suspect I might have misjudged it first time round and that the knowledge that Jackie was white in the novel might throw interesting light on the choice of a black actress in the movie. ( )

I kind of remembered the movie when I read this, but not enough to spoil the whole thing.
The scheme works perfectly. Jackie smuggles in more money than she tells the Feds she is and then with Max's help, gets it out from under Ordell's nose. The scene in the department store with the changing room is perfectly choreographed. In the end she gets her money and Max.
Leonard's style is to put you right in the middle of the action and let you figure things out on your own. There's not a lot of build up or explanation of anything or anyone. It took me a couple of chapters to feel comfortable with the characters and what was going on.

I read this book because I liked the movie Jackie Brown. It's the only Elmore Leonard book that I've ever read but if his others are like this one, I'll probably read more. ( )

The cast of larger than life characters jump straight off the page in this Elmore Leonard novel. The action is all in the dialogue, description is kept to a minimum, but you can picture exactly what's going. Fantastic writing. ( )