Pagan Babies

Rating:
Summary: Leonard at top form
Review: Father Terry Dunn knows it is time to leave the Rwanda massacre. His church contains forty-seven corpses turning to "leather." Although Terry is hiding as a priest, he cannot take any more of the killing fields. He kills several of the culprits but flees home to Detroit. He originally fled to avoid jail time.

Debbie Dewey has just left prison after three years for trying to run over her former husband with a car. Debbie wants to become a stand-up comic until she meets Terry still masquerading as a priest. They are immediately attracted to one another and he brings her into his current con, bilking wealthy patrons in a save the Rwandan children cause which is another name for his wallet. She ups the ante by persuading him that her ex and the mob boss he is tied to is the perfect pigeon.

PAGAN BABIES is more than vintage Leonard. This novel is classic Leonard wildly destroying moral barriers. The story line is entertaining, never eases up, and contains Mr. Leonard's graphic but picturesque prose that shows he is quite a talent. The characters are typical of Mr. Leonard's novel as they run the full spectrum of sleaze, in other words likable to detestable parasites. This tale is superb reading for those fans that enjoy something different along the lines of a fabulously written crime drama heavily spiced with the absurd.

Rating:
Summary: couldn't finish it
Review: I've always liked his books despite their flaws. I like his unpredictable plots and anything goes approach to plotting ... but he's clearly become wrapped up in the Elmore Leonard myth, and the writing style has deteriorated and the plots have become more forced and the characters more forced. I tried reading another recent book of his, and I'm noticing the same thing in that. Frankly, I don't have the patience to get through the awful writing and over-reliance on "snappy" dialogue that is supposed to be so "realistic and gritty" and whatever other adjectives people want to apply to his dialogue writing skills. The fact is nobody, but Nobody actually talks like that. All the characters speak in the same style of one-liner quips and pseudo-street lingo, whether they're a lawyer or hitman or a modern day Christ figure, and it grows stale and repetitive, and now that seems to be all he relies on, his supposed "ear" for realistic dialogue. I'm sorry, but no one I know, in the entire circle of people I have to interact with daily, talk like some snappy-speaking wiseguy. Conversations do not flow like that. Yes, he has a way with language, but it's gone stale. There's still some older books I'll check out of his, but his new ones I've now given up on. (You know, there's a reason his books don't make good movies -- in movies his dialogue doesn't work when real life people actually have to recite those lines, and it takes a Quentin Tarantino to rework the dialogue to make a good movie from one of his books.) You'll find the same problem in the Robert Parker books.

Rating:
Summary: Leonard's best!
Review: I've read 7 or 8 of Leonard's books, and this one is certainly the his highest achievement. The story is taught, the characters well drawn, and the writing some of his best.

Rating:
Summary: If you never have
Review: This is the first work that I have read by Mr. Elmore Leonard. Prior to this the movie "Get Shorty" was the limit of my "Leonard" knowledge. The movie had some great dialogue and a menagerie of personalities.

There is no doubting the Author has a great ear for dialogue, and he creates unsavory characters that would normally be very difficult to believe, or would result in horrible clichés. Mr. Leonard manages to make his players credible, even when placed in outrageous backdrops/situations.

I would certainly read another of his works based upon his reputation if not this particular book. It may be that legitimate Authors in this genre are being hurt by all the imitators, as I found most of the "no one appears to be who they are, or are they" situations, less than surprising. Dark Humor requires an extremely delicate touch. I'm not sure any Author can pull this off with Genocide, even when the Genocide is one that was given little attention for obvious and disheartening reasons. There is a point where using an outrageous human behavior just does not work, some subjects are better left alone.

The man can write, I just feel the limits of how far you can push a given event, went beyond a point that any quality of writing could present/manage well. Dark Humor can be funny; can make you laugh while asking yourself why, but this didn't work for me.

Rating:
Summary: learn to write dialogue
Review: Well maybe 5 stars was a little strong, but I think more people should know about and appreciate Elmore Leonard.
(I guess Danny Devito must like him quite a bit because he's made at least two movies, that I know of, from Leonard's books.)
I bought the book mostly because it was on the bargain table at the bookstore, so I was pleasantly surprised at the irreverent humor and snappy, believable dialogue. The story is fun and has some interesting twists throughout the book. My favorite line was when Father Terry dispensed some "penance" to a group of local Hutu guys who smugly thought they were above the law (both moral and earthly ).
A few months after I finished Pagan Babies I read "On Writing" by Stephen King and was gratified that he confirmed my opinion of Leonard's writing. King used exerpts from Leonard's work to illustrate written dialogue at it's finest.