Glitz

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 show more female love interest, a sexy, cool, intelligent, funny, totally likable 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. show less

I read somewhere recently a book reviewer, whom I respect, talking about Elmore Leonard and how other, good writers in the USA (I seem to recall Updike) admire Leonard for his writing style. So, I was inspired to give him a try and this was my first effort.

I liked it. A very clean writing style, direct, with none of the sometimes convoluted scene-setting or descriptive pieces that one usually gets in other murder mysteries; no pages of introspection of philosophizing, but nevertheless a sophisticated presentation of characters, nicely defined by their thoughts and even more by their actions, for this is very much an action-focused story where plots and subplots interweave and change places. It begins with the shooting of Lt. Vincent show more Mora, who survives, and goes to Puerto Rica for convalescence in the sun, unaware that he is being tracked by Teddy Magik, an punk rapist that he had put away years ago, and who is now bent on revenge and the death of Lt. Mora. A connected subplot concerns a beautiful young PR woman who befriends Mora but who goes to Atlantic City, against Mora's advice and judgement, to work as a hostess in one of the large casinos, and who ends up murdered. Mora, from Miami, goes to Atlantic City to try to find her killers, and cuts a swath through the local crime establishment, before he discovers that the person he seeks is closer that he realizes in Teddy Magik. Back to PR for the climax of the story.

The action is true, and the dialogue even better. The book could immediately be transformed into a screenplay (as have a number of Leonard's books), but this is not to demean it. The dialogue is excellent, the story believeable and fast paced, the characters well drawn. show less

Glitz by Elmore Leonard is simply a fun and easy to read book of the crime genre containing no lessons to steal away with or heavy philosophical points to ponder.

It is easy to see why author Leonard's works are so often transformed into screenplays. Glitz started out with a bang, literally, and had me laughing out loud as Vincent, the police detective, began to sound like Woody Allen wearing a shoulder harness for his 9mm automatic, and possessing a wicked right hook.

Elmore Leonard paints the picture and, in a delightful manner, shoots his character's messages across with very few adjectives and adverbs, so that the reader doesn't feel he is reading some formula-derived 'paint-by-numbers' novel.

If a person needs to pick up a book or show more two for the weekend, the beach, any trip to the airport or for the typical waits in either the lines of the government Social Security Administration or Post Office, you can't go wrong by purchasing a non-pretentious Elmore Leonard paperback to enjoy. show less

I like detective novels and I don't like them at the same time. They can be fun, but also formulaic and sexist. This one didn't offend me. It was well written and even made me laugh a little (rare for this genre). For a short book, there were parts I felt didn't add much to the story and made events unfold slowly. But, I'd definitely read more from this author in the future.

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 all 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 show more 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. show less

Pure Elmore Leonard with the characters, the locations, the dialouge. I did feel like there was one character too many, since I never could keep one of the players in my mind as to who they were. But that's probably just me.

A very well written, fun read. Mr. Leonard knows his genre and does it very well. A real complexly simple plot reveals itself into another book that I wish had a sequel to read but don’t believe it does.