Split Images

by Elmore Leonard

Robbie Daniels is a Palm Beach playboy. He's the kind of guy who gets away with everything - even murder - until a vacationing Motown cop, Bryan Hurd, starts asking questions. When this millionaire reptile reveals the psychopath beneath his slippery skin, Hurd finds out this is one helluva way for an out-of-town lawman to spend his vacation.

• ISBN10: 0688169716
• ISBN13: 9780688169718
• Publish Date: 1 July 1999 (first published 1 February 1982)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 14 July 2011
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: William Morrow
• Edition: QUILL ed.
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 282
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

I need to come up with a way to rank just these books of Elmore’s. There are so many, I try to reserve the five stars for only the very best, but there are so many that are the very best. As soon as I love them enough to read again and again, they’re top-shelf for me.

Let’s say, if I sort them into the top third, the middle third, and the bottom third— which still gets high marks— this one is a top-third for sure.

There’s just something here that really gets me. I like this era of his work so much, the era of The Hunted and Swag and Gold Coast and Mr. Majestyk. I like his quiet men and the nuances of heat and loneliness in his relationships. It’s not storybook. It’s real. It’s lived-in. Here, there’s a guy who maybe wants to kill people (he definitely wants to kill people) and the part that sings is his hired ex-cop stalking the intercostal waterway beleaguered with clunky cameras and bug bites. Everybody’s got a thorn in their side. Everybody’s got a cross to bear. Everybody’s got a bone to pick with their father. And because of the love between Angela and Bryan, there’s maybe the most terrible, beautiful line I’ve had from Elmore yet:

But he wasn’t going to outscream the ocean. Nobody was going to do that.

This is why, some days I want to say nobody has any business writing people until they’ve spent time with Elmore’s. (Some days? Most days.) Here, even Walter is my favorite, such a dumb, smartass asshole he walked his way right into my heart. How many times do you get to say that?

All the time, if this is what you read.

- - -

May 2014: Each time through I find something a little extra to love. This time, it’s the way Bryan’s small lies don’t even merit a comment. They don’t backfire, they don’t affect the plot, he doesn’t get found out, it doesn’t put him at a crossroads or cause a crisis of conscience. It’s just a part of who he is and he’s a good man through and through.