Raylan
A Novel
-
-
3.4 • 33 Ratings
-
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Elmore Leonard can write circles around almost anybody active in the crime novel today.”
—New York Times Book Review
The revered New York Times bestselling author, recognized as “America’s greatest crime writer” (Newsweek), brings back U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, the mesmerizing hero of Pronto, Riding the Rap, and the hit FX series Justified.
With the closing of the Harlan County, Kentucky, coal mines, marijuana has become the biggest cash crop in the state. A hundred pounds of it can gross $300,000, but that’s chump change compared to the quarter million a human body can get you—especially when it’s sold off piece by piece.
So when Dickie and Coover Crowe, dope-dealing brothers known for sampling their own supply, decide to branch out into the body business, it’s up to U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens to stop them. But Raylan isn’t your average marshal; he’s the laconic, Stetson-wearing, fast-drawing lawman who juggles dozens of cases at a time and always shoots to kill. But by the time Raylan finds out who’s making the cuts, he’s lying naked in a bathtub, with Layla, the cool transplant nurse, about to go for his kidneys.
The bad guys are mostly gals this time around: Layla, the nurse who collects kidneys and sells them for ten grand a piece; Carol Conlan, a hard-charging coal-mine executive not above ordering a cohort to shoot point-blank a man who’s standing in her way; and Jackie Nevada, a beautiful sometime college student who can outplay anyone at the poker table and who suddenly finds herself being tracked by a handsome U.S. marshal.
Dark and droll, Raylan is pure Elmore Leonard—a page-turner filled with the sparkling dialogue and sly suspense that are the hallmarks of this modern master.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Raylan Givens—the fictional character behind TV’s Justified—returns for another fast-talking, quick-drawing adventure in crime and punishment. This time, the U.S. Marshal is back home in Kentucky investigating an urban legend come to life when his sometimes-informant Angel Arenas is found—minus his kidneys—in an icy bathtub. In his final novel before his death, Elmore Leonard proves one last time why he’s a master of the page-turning crime thriller, weaving seemingly unconnected characters and events into a mesmerizing mystery that keeps us guessing. Each character is full of Leonard’s signature local colour and quirky dialogue, making Raylan the perfect swan song for a giant of American crime fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
MWA Grand Master Leonard's fast-paced, darkly humorous third crime novel starring straight-shooting, supercool U.S. marshal Raylan Givens (after 1995's Riding the Rap) pits Givens, a former coal miner from Harlan County, Ky., against three very different female crooks a transplant nurse illegally harvesting organs, a viperous coal company vice president, and a poker-playing Butler University coed, who may or may not be robbing banks to support her habit. The author's trademark witty dialogue and adeptness at developing quirky, memorable characters overshadows the novel's plot, which reads like a series of interconnected short stories. For example, the plights of perpetually stoned dope dealers Dickie and Coover Crowe; their infamous father, Pervis "Speed" Crowe; and out-of-work miner Otis Culpepper serve to highlight the economic issues affecting Kentucky coal country. Readers will want to see more of the endearing Givens, the focal character of Justified, the popular FX TV series that starts its third season in early 2012.
Customer Reviews
The grand master of crime writers
With more than 40 novels under his belt you have to wonder if Elmore Leonard is playing by the rules. How can a writer be so dead-on with the voice of criminals? Quite simply, he's the best at what he does. No other writer can drive a story almost entirely on dialogue and still create a world rich with unsavoury characters, double-crosses and more twists than the backroads of Harlan County. This is not Leonard's best work but still beyond what most crime writers will ever hope to achieve. It's also a great supplement to Season 3 of Justified.