I'm darned if I understand the hullaballoo made of this writer. His characters are shallow, mostly unlikeable, and they operate in a strata of society I'd rather not visit, at least through Leonard's eyes. Now, JDM and others can be in this same strata and their characters will be multi-dimensional and said actions in the plot will be consummated in more acceptable visage. ( )

Good ear for dialogue, but I had trouble caring about any of the characters. ( )

Well now, Elmore Leonard is a very talented guy, but this early tale of detectively midlife crisis and murder most foul amid the not-yet-kitschy glamour of Atlantic City's strip seems peculiarly straightfaced. Like, it's allegedly 1985, but none of the black dudes are into rap, everybody's on about ludes al the time like it's disco tymez, and there are a bunch of other offkey bits that suggest he doesn't really have his finger on the pulse. Like, he has the pastiche of Hammett and Chandler down and he's updated it with some ganja and some profanity, but the grace notes aren't right. The villain is right out of Psycho, for god's sake, and entertaining for some of the wrong reasons (in with the right ones).

But the biggest weird thing is the way there's no self-consciousness, the way the book doesn't wink at itself and genre conventions in the mode of later Leonard or basically any murder story of the last fifteen years - or since Clockers or Bonfire of the Vanities or VI Warshawski, even. Elmore seems to be finding his feet and playing it straight and not really getting yet what's at the forefront of the genre - that archness that for good or bad you kinda need right now in any kind of genre fic. But he has an eye for the killer detail and a feel for dialogue that prolly needed to go through a Glitz to shrug off some shibboleths. ( )

2751 Glitz. by Leonard Elmore (read 28 May 1995) David Lehman's ten favorite crime novels include this title so I read it. It was published in 1985. The book is laid in Puerto Rico and Atlantic City, and Vicent Moro is a Miami Beach cop. The book is full of spelled-out obscene and profane words and is really sickening. It reads easy, of course, but the last few chapters are kind of boring. I need read no more of Leonard, who reads like pulp fiction. ( )

Vincent Mora is bringing in groceries when a slimeball demands his wallet. Instead of handing it over or playing the tough guy, Vincent wearily explains the obvious. You think I'd drive a car like that? It's a cop car, asshole. Now go lean on it. Not smart; he ends up shot, with red wine and pasta sauce all over him. That's just for starters. Add a beautiful Puerto Rican hooker, some goombas at an Atlantic City casino, a bad-tempered parrot, an ex-con nutcase who wants to look Vincent in the eye when he shoots him, a touch of garlic and simmer gently. It's got what Leonard does best: a weird but quite believable bad guy, vivid settings, a cast of criminals who are treated with generosity even though they're, well, pretty bad, a great female love interest, a sexy, cool, intelligent, funny, totally likeable hero who doesn't indulge in angst, but from time to time thinks about the slimeball who tried to mug him. Vincent ponders ways he could have handled it that wouldn't end up with shooting and killing the would-be mugger. A tough guy who's really bothered when he takes a life. I like that. Lots of humor, dialogue that's absolutely right, a great sense of timing, a plot that keeps twisting ... you can't do better than this.