Rating: 
Summary: Cheap, grimy fun . . . Perfect.
Review: Goes down super smooth. This is vintage Leonard: frenetic, full of bad guys with bigger plans than abilities. The dialogue is typically crisp, the plotting brisk, the entire book funny. Leonard captures urban crime in the 1980s brilliantly here. FREAKY DEAKY is cheap, grimy fun, this time with an ending that is quite literally explosive. Another perfect book. Leonard has quite the touch.
Rating: 
Summary: Racist, Sexist and Pointless
Review: I despised this book. The racism was difficult to stomach, especially since there weren't any characters who *weren't* racist. The sexism and complete disregard for the feelings of a woman who has been raped and the lack of even one sympathetic character was enough to make me want to lose my lunch. I read the whole thing, expecting some kind of redemption in the end but there wasn't any. I kept hoping that all the characters would end up being blown up by a big box of their own dynamite.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as great as i thought
Review: I expected sooooooooo much more from the author of Pronto and Riding da Rap...It was definetly trippy but not freaky
Rating:
Summary: EMPTY
Review: I found it to be shallow, empty, not funny, a deadend. There just wasn't any thing there to GET INTO! I was hoping I'd like Elmore Leonard but find his books depthless...uninteresting.
Rating:
Summary: This is Elmore at his best.
Review: I have read over 15 novels by Elmore Leonard, and this is my favorite. He just has the abilty to capture the mind or lack of minds of some criminals.
Rating: 
Summary: freaky indeed
Review: i like this book.i like it that much so ill recommend it to anyone who likes crime novels.the best character is probably robin.she and her partner cause havoc everywhere and its up to the hero chris to stop them.well enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Another fine Leonard novel.
Review: I must confess to having recently succumbed to a Leonard addiction. His style is so distinct, and so easy on the eye and ear, that other crime novelists seem flat and pale by comparison. 'Freaky Deaky' only exacerbated my condition. All the classic Leonard elements are in place: the sociopathic crim, the idiot offsider, the character who plans to get rich off the failings of other scammers, and, at the centre, a character too cool to be ruffled by anything. All these elements are realised in snappy dialogue and witty digressions on all manner of pop culture phenomena. The minor failing of 'Freaky Deaky', and one shared by many Leonard novels, is that the conclusion is not as strong as the lead-up demands: Leonard's novels sometimes seem to be all glorious wind-up and very little delivery. I also think that the typical super-cool Leonard hero is never as strongly drawn as the villains, or even as the love-interests Leonard supplies for him; it's hard to tell Leonard's heroes from one another, while the villains all stand out as individuals. But this is carping: Leonard is the best popular writer around.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful page turner
Review: I read this book in one sitting as I could not tear myself away from it. Mr. Leonard is a great writer heeding tot he old E.B. White rules from Elements of Style - omit needless words. He mixes drama with probably the best dialogue writing.
Rating:
Summary: Slightly Better than Usual
Review: I'd have to rate this one marginally better than most of Leonard's stuff, which is to say decent, but not outstanding. Set in Detroi, the story centers on the schemes of a pair of former student radicals from '69-70 or so who meet up again some 15-20 years later. The nastier of the two is Robin, who seems to be dying to recapture the excitement of those heady days, so she convinces former lover, and explosives whiz, Skip to help her blackmail the rich brothers who got them put in jail for three years long ago. Meanwhile, a former member of the police bomb squad is helping a woman trying to bring rape charges against one of the brothers. Mixed into it all is a former Black Panther who is now bodyguard/chauffeur/butler to one of the brothers. Lots of double and tripple-crossing ensues, and in typical Leonard fashion, the criminals are simultaneously clever in planning, and sloppy in executing their schemes. Of course no one speaks normally, as wisecracking and attitude color every line of dialogue. One downside is that there is a subplot the book leads off with that has too much of a coincidental connection with the rest of the characters, and serves to introduce the main character, Chris, is an entirely unnecessary way. Also, the offhand treatment of Gretta/Ginger's rape strikes one as rather awkward and clumsy, if not downright offensive to some. Still, it's better than most of his other books I've read, and a pretty safe bet for a few hours on the plane or beach.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best Elmore Leonard novel
Review: I've read just about all of Elmore Leonard's thrillers up to "Maximum Bob"; I've missed many of the recent ones, not for any particular reason, just haven't picked them up.His early works -- "52 Pick-Up," "Unknown Man #89," and "City Primeval," among others -- display a very gritty, street smart view of tough guys. Starting around the time of "Get Shorty," he seemed to lose some of the grit, replacing it with sharp humor, while retaining the street smart view. It was as if he were writing with a slight tinge of Carl Hiaasen. "Freaky Deaky" straddles those two eras. It's got the humor but also the grittiness. The plot revolves around four characters, two "good guys" and two "bad guys." (Actually, a bad guy and a bad woman.) The two good guys are police detectives formerly on the bomb squad, and the others are 60s radicals who never grew up. As in any Leonard novel, the two pairs are in a collision course toward each other, with a slam-bang climax. The dialogue crackles (Leonard has a terrific ear for dialogue), and the characters are sharply drawn.
|
