This is an ode to film noir cinema and it drips with nostalgia for that hard-boiled era. The characters are distinct and just deep enough to make you care. If there's anything to complain about, maybe how easily the female conquests come to LaBrava, our protagonist, but it's all in the genre. There's much to admire about Leonard's spare style. There's almost nothing described or alluded to that's immaterial to the plot. And the mystery continues until the final sentences. I'll read more Leonard, for sure. It was like scarfing down a good bowl of gumbo.

Beginning with Lay of the Land, I'm reading the trilogy backwards. (Don't ask why.) I can't wait to see how it all started. Yes, as per other reviewers, Ford is excruciatingly, obsessively self-reflexive and I love it. I luxuriate in all the particulars; in his harrowingly accurate insights into middle age.The man can take four pages to decide to ring a doorbell. He writes the way we'd think if we allowed ourselves the time. Independence Day is so chock full of mundane wonders, I couldn't care less if nothing much transpires. When so many are "showing, not telling," Ford -- perhaps as well as anyone since Bellow -- is telling you everything you could possibly never want to know. Highly recommended, but only if you can relax with it, slurp up all the details and go back at it with a bit of bread to wipe up the last drops.