Split Images

by Elmore Leonard

[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.

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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.