Get Shorty
A Novel
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4.1 • 89 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“A Hollywood hit….Taut, inimitable prose and characters who could have only sprung from the mind of Elmore Leonard.”
—Detroit News
The Chicago Tribune has dubbed Elmore Leonard, “the coolest, hottest writer in America.” In the same league as the legendary great ones—John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain—the “King Daddy of crime writers” (Seattle Times) demonstrates his remarkable mastery with Get Shorty, one of the most adored of his forty-plus novels. The basis of the hit movie starring John Travolta and Danny DeVito, Get Shorty chronicles the over-the-top, sometimes violent Hollywood misadventures of a Florida mob loan shark who chases a deadbeat client all the way to Tinseltown and decides to stick around and make movies. Get Shorty’s shylock protagonist, Chili Palmer, is a truly inspired creation—as memorable as another unforgettable Leonard hero, U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens of the hit TV series Justified—and readers will relish his moves and countermoves in this electrifying, funny, bullet train-paced winner from “the greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever!” (New York Times Book Review)
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this raucous novel about a loan shark who winds up falling into showbiz, Elmore Leonard zooms in on Tinseltown’s sleazy side. Based on Leonard’s own less-than-positive experiences in Hollywood, Get Shorty skewers the similarities between organized crime and the movie business—and makes the mob look saintly by comparison. (Industry bigwigs were apparently untroubled; the book’s been adapted for film and TV.) Combining hard-boiled noir with the sun-dappled absurdities of L.A. life, Get Shorty is a fizzy love-hate letter to the movies.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Taking his latest fictive turn in Hollywood, Leonard, whose oeuvre includes screenplays as well as such bestselling novels as Glitz and Freaky Deaky , adds insider knowledge to his signature humor in this roundly satisfying behind-the-scenes tour of filmdom. Slightly disaffected Chili Palmer, a small-time loan shark with big-time style, is a vintage Leonard hero. Following a bad debt from Miami to Las Vegas and on to Beverly Hills, Chili hooks up with Harry Zimm, once a leading director of grade-B horror flicks, now trying to make a comeback. While succumbing to the siren call of celluloid, Chili also narrows in on the bad debt, in the process running up against a sharp-dressing hood with whose money Harry has played too loose. In Leonard's seamless handling, the complex plot flows through twists of revenge, murder and romance, as Chili, his authentic cool making a mark in the capital of sham (``Don't talk when you don't have to'' is his very un-Hollywood motto), cagily gets it together with Karen Flores, Harry's former lover and featured star. A perfect resolution puts punch in the title and will keep readers smiling for days. Chili and his story are Leonard's best yet. First serial rights to Rolling Stone; BOMC and QPB selections; major ad/promo, author tour.
Customer Reviews
Great book
Great characters and a superb sense of humor make Get Shorty a wonderful read. Highly recommend it.
Good stuff
This man can write. He had a way with dialogue that made
it seem like conversation not a novel.