Rating: 
Summary: Fun Beach Book
Review: Pagan Babies is a great beach book. It's short, tongue-in-cheek and always entertaining. It presents us with an off-the-wall plot that never stops taking twists and turns in every which way. What I like about Leonard is the skill with which he writes dialogue. His novels are usually 90% dialogue; he is a master at giving each character a distinct voice and feel. And his dialogue is always very sarcastic. I found myself laughing more than once at the way the characters talked and acted. A scam plot like this one needs to be believable in order to work. Here, you have a pretend priest and a woman who wants to scam a quarter million out of a rich mob boaa. The plot is highly entertaining and very funny. The novel is very straight to the point. It is genuine Leonard and it would make a great movie! It seems to me that Leonard keeps getting better with time. I, for one, awaits his next book with great anticipation!
Rating: 
Summary: Good mindless entertainment for a day or two at the beach
Review: The most recent book of the man who wrote Get Shorty. Excellent dialogue, shallow charaters, simple plot. This novel is engaging and funny but not thought-provoking as one had the rigth to expect when the Rwandan genocide is used as backdrop for the story. It serves no purpose at all and is completely wasted dramatically. Alas, this is nothing more than good mindless entertainment for a day or two at the beach.
Rating: 
Summary: Typical and formula
Review: After I read this latest by Leonard I decided "no more". How anyone can think his characters are believable is beyond me. They are bland. And another thing...the author is a shamless name-dropper. He had to name everything in Royal Oak, MI. It wasn't enough to say the characters went to a comedy club...or a restaurant...Leonard had to point out and name everything. His plots are too simple. As for being humorous. There wasn't anything even mildly funny about PAGEN BABIES. Debbie's routine wasn't amusing at all. I should have listened to my husband when he said I would be wasting my time reading PAGEN BABIES.
Rating:
Summary: DID HE WRITE THIS IN HIS SLEEP?
Review: I had heard great things about Elmore Leonard's writing, so I thought I'd give PAGAN BABIES a try. Maybe his other books are gems, but I fear I picked a stinker with this one. The story seemed promising---Father Terry is a priest on the lam in Rwanda at the time of the Tutsi-Hutu tribal wars. But Leonard writes about the Rwandan genocide without much insight nor care about the characters. His writing didn't move me to a single emotion except maybe boredom. The prose is so dull; not a single line made me sit up and take notice, and I often felt lost in the story (in a bad way) so reading every page was a real chore. You'd have to twist my arm to read another one of his books. I guess it pays to be a famous writer...they'll even publish your dregs.
Rating:
Summary: Donate to the Elmore Leonard Retirement Fund
Review: Elmore Leonard has managed to write a book that's simultaneously a quick read and a tremendous waste of time. Perhaps this is because Mr. Leonard decided to put as little effort as possible into writing it. I got the distinct impression that the author dictated the entire book into a handheld tape recorder, and some poor sap at the publishing house had to type it out verbatim. My guess is that Leonard has the kind of influence that cows most editors which would explain how sentences beginning with, "Johnny saying..." could make it through to the final draft. I heard a lot about Leonard's wit and gift for dialogue before reading this book, but I didn't see any evidence of these assets having finished reading the book. I guess if we're going to see evidence of his humor we'd see it in one of the main character's, Debbie, who is an aspiring comedian. We're treated to a scene where she's performing her act, and as I read it I assumed that she was bombing terribly. But, lo and behold, Leonard informs us that she was hilarious and people loved her act. You would never it know it from just reading her material. She must have had one hell of a delivery. Another bothersome aspect of this book is that Leonard was, flat out, lazy when it came to developing his characters. I'm not one who believes you need to go into long descriptions of a character's appearance, but don't tell me someone's "not a bad looking guy" and leave it at that. If that's the best you can do, then don't even bother. The worst part of this description is that he uses it for 2 different characters. Furthermore, the second time he tells us a a character is "not a bad looking guy" is 30 pages or so after Leonard introduces him. Why even bothering telling me anything about the guy's appearance at this stage? There's also a number of instances where this supposedly deft writer of dialogue has characters speaking a language that hasn't existed since the last member of the Rat Pack died. One such instance that comes to mind is when he has the 33 year old Debbie say of Terry, "He's a stand-up guy." Aside from not putting forth much effort in his prose, Leonard also doesn't bother developing aspects of his plot which may seem trivial to the story, but are critical for the larger events to occur. The most prominent example of this is the fact that Fr. Terry explains quite openly that people could make a tax deductible contribution to his Rhwandan Orphans fund, because he opened a bank account for the fund. Oh if only it were so easy to establish a tax exempt organization. With the general plot Leonard built he could have actually put together a very good novel. Unfortunately, he didn't feel like putting forth that sort of effort. Rather, he had his mind on the screen adaption as he was writing the book.
Rating:
Summary: Book and Audio Interpretation Good, but Not Great.
Review: "Pagan Babies" is a tightly wound yarn that keeps you guessing until the surprise you wanted or expected to hear never really materializes the way you want. The Audio CD, which I am reviewing, is a nicely performed production narrated by Steve Buscemi (pronounced BOO-SEH-MEE, not BOO-SHEH-MEE, like I had thought,) who is most known for his roles in "Fargo" and "Reservoir Dogs." I love Buscemi's voice, and I am a great fan of his acting career. He reads Leonard's crisp dialogue with the right balance of seriousness and cutting wit. But something was still missing. Compared with other narrators, Steve's read was rather dry and straight: Kind of like your Dad reading a book to you at night. Dad never has the same kind of flourish you might expect from a professional actor, but since he's your Dad, you don't complain. With Steve Buscemi, I expected more. There's enough of the ACTOR Buscemi there to be effective, but it's not enough to be considered extraordinary. Still, it is a mild complaint in the face of such great writing. Leonard writes the hard-boiled yarn better than anyone around, and this is no different. I would have preferred a more explosive ending, but it does satisfy all the requirements readers have for endings: Everything is resolved, and nothing is left dangling. Overall, it is a good story narrated by a quality actor, but I still would have preferred a little extra "umph" from both Leonard AND Buscemi.
Rating:
Summary: Noble Intentions
Review: Yet again, Elmore Leonard has written a solidly diverting slice-o-crime novel populated with a vast cast of slightly offbeat, and mostly sleazy characters busy trying to screw each other over and a number of reversals. This one is slightly different in that it starts in Rwanda, introducing Terry, a Catholic priest who's been there five years and lived through the worst of the genocide. It's pretty clear Leonard has set it up this way in order to call his vast fanbase's attention to the atrocities that happened in Rwanda (and could reoccur at any time). It's a laudable aim for him to use his popularity to try and raise awareness about the genocide--even namechecking Philip Gouretich's seminal journalistic account "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families"--however it must be said that it somewhat detracts from the tightness of the book. For some reason the book is a little flat and lifeless in places, and I suspect it has something to do with shoehorning in the Rwanda stuff (actually the same thing happened in Cuba Libre). That said, I'm glad he did, 'cause it's still pretty entertaining. Things kick off when Terry returns to Detroit to settle a cigarette smuggling indictment against him. The scheming begins almost immediately, and revolves around Debbie, a friend of Terry's brother, who's trying to get even with the con artist who ripped her off for $67,000. It all ripples out from there and includes some cunning old-school Detroit mobsters, and some not so cunning ones, as well as a hick hitman who's a sure thing to reappear in another Leonard work at some point. SPOILER ALERT >> Stop Reading Now If You Don't Want To Know The End!! >> The denouement is somewhat weak, as Debbie undergoes an unconvincing transformation at the end and Terry makes an asinine move. The mob forces him to return to Africa, and he goes back to the village where he shot and killed four guys just 11 days previously! It seems highly unlikely he would actually return to that village, since it would be a safe bet that the family or friends of the four men who come looking for him with machetes. Indeed, in trying to make the feel-good ending work, Leonard seems to have forgotten that even apparently noble actions carry unpleasant consequences--especially in Rwanda.
Rating: 
Summary: A book with character
Review: This is my first Elmore Leonard book, altho I liked the cinematic version of "Get Shorty". I thought that "Pagan Babies" was a real hoot. The characters all made me smile and endeared themselves to me in their own weird way. They were all just a little outlandish without being contrived,---if there is anything I find annoying, it is stereotyped, contrived characters.The title is so appropriate, once you get to where you know why it was chosen. I happen to live in a suburb of Detoit, so I liked all the local references. The dialogue was entertaining...really, this book is a genre by itself! I plan to check out more of Elmore Leonard's work.
Rating:
Summary: One of a kind
Review: "Pagan Babies" by Elmore Leonard must be the only book with a great revenge/con story that starts and ends in Rwanda's killing fields. This one has all of Leonard's touches: cool dialogue, interesting characters, and a tight plot.
Rating:
Summary: From Rawanda To Detroit & Back In 11 Days
Review: What do you get when you combine genocide in Africa, Jack Daniels, a Friar who's not, a hard bitten ex-con eager for cash and revenge, a slow witted bodyguard, a slick con artist, a crime syndicate officer on the take, and an elderly Mafioso too sly to be scammed? The latest Elmore Leonard novel, of course. Once you start reading this quick paced book you will be hard pressed to put it down. Leonard's witty dialogue, combined with well written scenes and colorful characters, will keep you turning page after page until you reach the end. Although somewhat predictable, it is a good read, and will have you anticipating the next book from this master of well crafted novels.
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