Availability:
Library | Call Number | Format | Status | Item Holds |
---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Quincy Thomas Crane Library | LEONARD | BOOK | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Whitman Public Library | LEO | BOOK | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Harry Arno was grossing six to seven thousand dollars a week running a South Miami Beach gambling operation. To protect his position, he was forced to cut a deal with the local muscle, Jimmy Capotorto (Jimmy Cap to the likes of Harry), an even fifty-fifty split. For years Harry had been padding his own stake by skimming a grand a week off the top. A couple of local detectives wise to sticky fingers try to bag Jimmy the Cap by putting the squeeze on Harry. Now, the dicks suggest, would be a good time for Harry to rat the mobster out. U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens has his own agenda. He has to deliver Harry to a Federal grand jury to testify at Jimmy's drug-running trial. Even though he's a step slower that he used to be, Harry's no fool. When Jimmy Cap's men are a hair too slow gunning him down and Raylan's surveillance slips, Harry's already two steps ahead of them. Years of preparation pay off and Harry slips out of the country pronto. Being on the lam is no time to get soft, but Harry didn't plan on missing his companion Joyce so much. Sneaking her to his hideout could save him from loneliness but Joyce's quick departure tips off his trackers. Jimmy Cap's men follow Joyce while Raylan stays close behind. The three sides end up in Rapallo, Italy, watching their own backs while keeping abreast of Harry's. But it's not until the chase leads back to Miami that the real winners and losers are revealed. Pronto is classic Elmore Leonard
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
From sly title through breath-stopping climax to funny wrap-up, readers will relish Leonard's ( Maximum Bob ) latest roller coaster ride. South Miami Beach bookie Harry Arno has been skimming from his mafia bosses for years. After a ruthless FBI man spreads a rumor to that effect, in an attempt to get Harry to testify against his boss, ``Jimmy Cap,'' the 66-year-old bookie splits early on his long-planned retirement in Rapallo, Italy. Rapallo is soon mobbed, so to speak, as Harry is joined by his girlfriend, his new bodyguard, Jimmy Cap's Italian-born enforcer ``the Zip,'' a handful of Italian thugs and a deputy U.S. Marshal, Raylan Givens. All engage in a deadly dance before Raylan manages to get most of the good guys back to Miami, where the dance begins again. Leonard's spare language and propulsive plotting still leave room for expositions of Sicilian slang, gamblers' lingo and Ezra Pound's private life. His colorful characters work together splendidly, especially the top trio: Harry, whose drinking, posturing and willfulness endanger everybody; the lethal Zip, who models himself, literally, on Frank Costello; and Raylan, whose Stetson and apparent goofiness mask a hard past in bloody Harlan County, Ky. The only problem with the book is that it ends. BOMC and QPB selection; major ad/promo; author tour. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
It's been frequently observed that Elmore Leonard is a master at creating lovable bad guys. That's close, but it's not quite right. In Leonard's world, it's not easy to get a fix on good and bad--everyone has an angle, to be sure, and some of those angles are more mean spirited than others, but beyond that, good and bad don't make much sense. Leonard's characters aren't bad guys; they're just fuck-ups. No other word will do to describe the bumbling brigade of Miami Beach bookies, mobsters, molls, and federal agents who populate this latest lowlife farce. Harry Arno, senior-citizen bookie, is at the center of the careening action: the feds have set up a sting to make it look like Harry is skimming profits from his mobster boss (he really is skimming, but that's another story); the mobster wants to hit Harry, but the doofuses he gives the job to can't handle it; Harry, for his part, escapes to Rapallo, Italy, where he wants to retire because he has this thing about Ezra Pound (yes, that's right, a South Beach bookie with a thing about Pound--it started in World War II, but that's another story, too); then there's U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens, the Shane of South Beach, who chases Harry to Italy, falls in love with his girlfriend, and insists on believing that the world is a well-ordered place. It's not, of course, especially after the fuck-ups get through with it. Leonard has been making that point for years, in novels that draw from every shade of the tragicomic spectrum. This one is lighter and funnier than most but not without an edge. Think of it as a Marx Brothers movie where people get killed. (Reviewed July 1993)0385308469Bill Ott