Elmore Leonard, always a good story with great writing. "Riding The Rap" perfect from start to finish. This was the second novel to feature Raylan Givens. ( )

Raylan Givens works for the US Marshalls Service. Harry Arno's former girlfriend, Joyce, asks current boyfriend Rayland to find the missing Harry who has been kidnapped by three mismatched bad guys. They want Harry to pay them a ransom from money he stole from others. As no ransom has been sought from Harry's mother or friends, the police are not interested in looking into a kidnapping that only Rayland says has happened.

As Rayland closes in on the thugs, they start eliminating one another. An interesting character is the Reverend Dawn Navarro, a sexy psychic who seems to be able to see into the future as well as describe incidents from the past which frightens the thugs and intrigues Rayland who finds her attractive but way too young for him.

Slow to start but it doesn't take long to grab you and turn into a page turner in the Elmore Leonard tradition. ( )

Another Raylan book, read because of "Justified". Also an excellent read. ( )

Another typical Elmore Leonard crime novel: nothing extraordinary but zips along at such a pace that it never outstays its welcome. I suspect that the three Raylan Givens books are not the best of Leonard, but I've read them before any of his other stuff because they were the (loose) basis for the outstanding TV series Justified. Consequently, the most fun I had in reading Riding the Rap, and the other Raylan books, was in noting bits where Justified clearly took some inspiration. The most obvious one is Rap's plotline, which served as the basis for the third episode of the first season of the show, but there are also other scenes and lines of dialogue which were mined for various episodes, including the 'Goofy' conversation as Raylan transports a fugitive in his car, the 'He's upstairs' anecdote Raylan gives, and his childhood memory where he learned you 'don't walk into a person's home unless you're invited'.

Maybe it's just because I miss Justified, which ended a couple of months ago after an excellent six-season run, but I enjoyed Riding the Rap more than the other Raylan Givens books. Pronto seemed a bit muddled to me, and Raylan was too familiar, having been cannibalised for material by the show's creators. Rap was in between the two but, truth be told, if it wasn't for the Justified heritage I don't think I would recommend it. I've mentioned my suspicion that these books probably don't represent the best of Elmore Leonard, but even so the cold fact is that they are little more than crime pulp: a decent way to fritter away a few hours. I've yet to read 'Fire in the Hole', the short story that was the more immediate inspiration for Justified, but I still find it impressive that FX managed to create an exceptional show of such depth and character out of books that, whilst not bad, are quite routine. ( )

Not as good as "Pronto", but not a bad read. The "bad" guys just weren't much to worry about, and Raylan's motivation to help Harry seemed a little far fetched. But, the federal marshal is a great character, and makes the book worth the effort! ( )