Road Dogs

February 2, 2009
Father and son writers Elmore and Peter Leonard have new novels publishing this spring.
Road Dogs
Elmore Leonard
. Morrow
, $26.99 (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-173314-7

Leonard launches three characters from previous novels on a collision course in this seemingly effortless performance. After prison buddy Cundo Rey (last seen in LaBrava
) drops a bundle on a shark attorney, celebrity bank robber Jack Foley (from Out of Sight
) gets his 30-year prison sentence reduced to 30 months. Jack's quickly back in the world, living large in one of Cundo's two multimillion-dollar houses in Venice, Calif., juggling a fast seduction with fortune-teller (from Riding the Rap
) Dawn Navarro (who is now Cundo's lady) and the untoward attention of rogue FBI agent Lou Adams, who's waiting for Foley to rob another bank. While Dawn tries to enlist Foley in a scheme to steal Cundo's off-the-books fortune, Cundo surprises them with an early release. Betrayal simmers while Foley considers going semi-straight—with the help of a widowed starlet—Dawn hatches a plan that could get her rich and rid her of all her problems, and Cundo's associates and neighborhood toughs get sucked into the fray. The plot isn't as tight as it could be, but Leonard's singular way with words is reason enough to read it.

July 27, 2009
A smooth and stylish performance by Peter James goes a long way in resurrecting three of Leonard's most famous characters for this latest novel. Jack Foley, bank robber extraordinaire partners up with Cundo Rey while serving time in a Miami prison. With some help from Cundo's lawyer, Foley is soon out of his cell and hanging out at Venice Beach with Cundo's girlfriend, Dawn Navarro. As with all of Leonard's books, each of these characters will do whatever to whomever to get whatever they're after. James slides easily between the book's eclectic roster of characters, giving each of them clear and distinctive voices. Whether it's Cundo's Cuban-accented gangsta riff, Dawn's cold sensuality or Jack's unflappable cool, he handles it with aplomb. Leonard continues to write the hippest crime fiction in town, and James's reading fits well with the author's cooler than cool prose. A Morrow hardcover
(Reviews, Feb. 2
).

March 1, 2009
Road dogs are prison buddies who watch each other's backs. Jack Foley and Cundo Rey are trying to maintain that loyalty after they get out and start anew in Venice, CA, where Rey's girl Dawn Navarro awaits. Leonard ("Up in Honey's Room") brings back old favorites Foley and Rey, Dawn, and Karen Siscosmart, sexy women and clever con artists, a mix the author knows well. Foley is being dogged by a rogue FBI agent who's convinced the infamous gentleman bank robber will strike again, and Rey's financial partner, Little Jimmy, is secretly in love with Dawn. The grifters' game of moving parts is quietly intriguing, but it never generates enough steam. This is Foley's story, and one can envision the movie alreadyhis character was irresistible in "Out of Sight". But there aren't enough capers or plot twists to make this one of the author's best. Leonard fans will be content, but steer newbies to "Out of Sight" or "Tishomingo Blues". Expect high demand and buy accordingly, but be moderate in your enthusiasm. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/09.]Teresa L. Jacobsen, Solano Cty. Lib., Fairfield, CA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2009
Leonard throws together three battle-hardened survivors from his earlier capers, with predictably unpredictable results.

Jack Foley (Out of Sight, 1996) robbed numerous banks before an amateurish mistake and a run-in with Bob Isom Gibbs, aka Maximum Bob, got him sent to prison for a 30-year stretch. There he meets Cundo Rey (LaBrava, 1983), the four-time killer from Cuba whose debt to society is much shorter. The two felons bond over the manifest injustice of Jack's disproportionate sentence, and soon Cundo's hooked Jack up with his smart-chick lawyer Megan Norris, who gets Jack's sentence knocked down to 30 months less time served. As a result, he gets to go home before Cundo, and the home he goes to is one of the two houses psychic Dawn Navarro (Riding the Rap, 1995) keeps for Cundo. Despite his FBI nemesis Lou Adams's certainty that Jack will rob another bank within a month, Jack and Cundo have their sights set higher than one more $5,000 score. They plan to insinuate Jack into Dawn's business, beginning with her high-value deal to free movie star Danialle Karmanos from the oppressive ghost of her late movie-producer husband. Even before Jack's met and charmed the susceptible Danny, he's already insinuated himself between Dawn's sheets, establishing himself as more than her business partner just in time to welcome Cundo back home. It's clear from the get-go that the real action here won't be the scam of Danny Karmanos but the drolly straight-faced efforts of the three co-conspirators to increase their share of the pot by reducing their numbers. Yet although the double-crosses are the stuff of the master's best work, they come across as telegraphic and obligatory, as if the tale were a sketch for a more full-blooded novel.

What works best are the matchless incidental pleasures Leonard's world always provides, from lightning-fast descriptions to bull's-eye dialogue, as when Cundo complains about Dawn's nagging:"Eight years inside I dream about her. I come out, she acts like she's my wife."

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from February 1, 2009
Its homecoming for a handful of Leonards most entertaining characters. When last seen, all-world bank robber Jack Foley was getting shot by his lover, U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco, at the end of Out of Sight (1996); bent fortune teller Dawn Navarro was riding shotgun alongside another marshal, Raylan Givens, the Shane of South Beach, in Riding the Rap (1995); and Cundo Rey was a go-go dancer, also in South Beach, before getting shot by a secret-service agent turned photographer in LaBrava (1983). Now Jack and Cundo are finishing up stretches of jail time in Florida, while Dawn, Cundos sort-of wife, awaits his return in Venice, California. Its the perfect setup for one of Leonards tragicomic screwball capers in which fast-talking, lovable but lethal con men (and women) try to outthink each other, avoid getting killed, and steal whatever there is to steal. Not a whole lot happens hereexcept for a couple of bursts of violence in the midst of the high jinks (a classic Leonard ploy)but its full of wonderful banter and the kind of back-and-forthing between characters out to double- and triple-cross each other that Ross Thomas used to do so well in his Woo and Durant novels. And, of course, theres Californias canal-strewn version of Venicea setting tailor-made for Leonards ability to match funky landscapes to offbeat characters. Reading isnt supposed to be this much fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)