Elmore Leonard, one of crime fiction’s icons, continues to pump out kinetic, character-based thrillers. Age doesn’t seem to dim his uncanny dialogue skills or his ability to move the reader in and out of scenes at will. Not a word is ever wasted.
All well and fine but are his recent books as exciting and unenjoyable? I can sense a drift downwards, a drift caused by Leonard’s gyrating manipulation of characters. He seems so keen to not prejudge the colourful, typically amoral cast he constructs that sometimes I find myself doubting their physical reality.
Elmore Leonard’s latest, Road Dogs, is a case in point. The plot idea holds much promise: throw together Jack Foley, the cool, handsome maestro bank robber from Out of Sight, Cundo Rey, the diminutive, murderous Cuban gangster from LaBrava, and Dawn Navarro, the stunning psychic conwoman from Riding the Rap, and see what happens. Foley and Rey open the novel as ‘road dogs,’ sharing a cell, and their relationship continues after Cundo Rey engineers their early releases, only now Dawn Navarro (Cundo Rey’s wife) has her own plans. Leonard is in top form with his writing but the first portion of the book, involving much retelling of past histories through conversations, is bewildering and tedious. The middle section picks up momentum and I felt a sense of genuine tension as the author establishes a tableau of doublecrossing possibilities. And then, inexplicably, I sensed the final third sway off course. Dawn Navarro stops making sense and the plot veers in arbitrary directions that rob the climax of any impact whatsoever.
Too much technique, not enough foundation.
2 Comments
Just wanted to drop you a line to say, I enjoy reading your site. I thought about starting a blog myself but don’t have the time.
Oh well maybe one day….
Time is the issue. I’m sure a lot of bloggers burn out fast, for that very reason.