Joe by Larry Brown

Let's clear up any misconceptions right now. Wade Jones is a no-account, low-life, wife-beating, scum sucking piece of white trash. No job, picks up tin cans for a little change, drags his wife, 2 daughters, and son around the southeast doing menial jobs, and squats his family in whatever abandoned structure he can find. And drinks, drinks, drinks.

Joe, the title character works in northern Mississippi doing some contract work for Weyerhauser. See they own a ton of prime timberland that is mostly covered by junk trees. Joe and his crew of daily employees go out to poison the trees so that good quality pine can be planted for future harvesting. But Joe is no saint. He drinks, whores, and gambles. Has spent 2 years in prison for assaulting a policeman and knows he'll go back for life probably if he doesn't toe the line, has a sometime girl no older than his out of wedlock and pregnant daughter, a dog that'll rip most anyone to shreds, and an ex-wife who gave up on Joe and his drinking ways.

Wade shacks up his family in a long abandoned 1 room log cabin. His son is 15, he thinks, and just wants to work so he can save up enough to buy a truck. That'd be their answer. He hooks up with Joe one day while both were wandering the back roads. And here, Joe gets the son he never had and the boy gains a father figure to replace the drunk back at the cabin.

Through a number of flashbacks, we learn that the Jones family actually had 5 kids. One daughter just ran off and a son fell out of a truck bed and was crushed by a trailing semi. The youngest daughter and mother have tried to retreat into themselves as best they can to escape. In one particularly despicable act, Wade tries to get some money for alcohol by selling his 12yo daughter's innocence to 2 back woods low life tramps who have a bit of an ongoing feud with Joe. While driving the boy back to the cabin, Joe comes across the exchange, sends the boy on home, takes out his gun, and realizing what he will be sacrificing for this little girl, settles some old and new scores.

This book follows up on my streak of the underbelly of the US. Larry Brown was mentioned as a possible inspiration for Donald Ray Pollack one cover blurb. This tale of desperation, failure, and final redemption at a huge cost was utterly vicious in its portrayal of a class of people none of us would want to cross. The dialogue is presented in a raw, coarse manner that most of us would need an interpreter for if it was spoken. As Stella is to dialogue of the NY street and Pelecanos is to the DC alleyways, Brown is to the Mississippi back country. Both an eloquent

and demeaning voice of a hidden society. A shame Brown died young, in his mid 50s. He could have shown us so much.

East Coast Don

The Orphan Master's Son

This book gets my ringing endorsement. I, we, my family have been doing a crash course in reading on Korea, primarily because my daughter is living there now, on Jeju Island. "Jeju Jenna" has written this review that will appear in the next addition of the Jeju Weekly, the local ex-pat weekly paper, so she gets credit for the review - when was the last time you read a novel that was based in North Korea?

“The Orphan Master’s Son: A Novel” follows the story of North Korean orphan, Jun Do, as
he grows up and navigates the precarious political environment in his native country. Through
this one character, Johnson takes his reader on a journey through life in a communist country:
from an orphanage, to a soldier and DMZ tunnel inspector, to a government kidnapper, to a
radio transmission translator, to a prison camp, to an assumed member of the elite in Pyongyang.
Johnson expertly mixes the genres of fiction and magical realism to paint a very realistic and
bleak picture of life in North Korea.

In the spirit of the hyperbolic propaganda of the North Korean government, Johnson expertly
convinces his readers to believe the unbelievable. Born in an orphanage, among the lowest rungs
of society, Jun Do is subject to the whims of the government and he is transferred from one
dangerous job to another.

“’Where we are from…stories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state,
everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he’d be wise to start practicing the
piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it
is the man who must change.’”

Over time, Jun Do begins to learn and understand the North Korean art of manipulation and uses
it to manipulate the Dear Leader himself, Kim Jung Il.

Johnson skillfully combines the unrealistic and realistic components of his story. Although this
is a work of fiction, Johnson’s beautifully haunting descriptions describe the culture of North
Korea better than any history book.

“No nation sleeps as North Korea sleeps. After lights-out, there is a collective exhale as heads his
pillows across a million households. When the tireless generations wind down for the night and
their red-hot turbines begin to cool, no lights glare on alone, no refrigerator buzzes dully through
the dark. There’s just eye-closing satisfaction and then deep, powerful dreams of work quotas
fulfilled and the embrace of reunification.”

Most illuminating are the comparisons and comments made about Korea’s greatest enemy,
America. Johnson employs his North Korean characters to look at America through their eyes, a
new perspective for the Western reader indeed.

Sun Moon, the national actress of North Korea, says to an American captive, “How does
a society without a fatherly leader work? How can a citizen know what is best without a
benevolent hand to shepherd her? Isn’t that endurance, learning how to navigate such a realm
alone-isn’t that survival?”

A typical propaganda story rings out over the loudspeakers espousing the virtues of virginity
and the evils of America, “Being the only animal with eyes sharp enough tosspot virginity,
witness our crow circle a Juche Youth Troop, and nod in approval as this lustrous avian performs
an aerial inspection of the reproductive purity. [The crow] won’t let ours become a nation
where people give names to canines, oppress others because of the color of their skin, and eat
pharmaceutically sweetened pills to abort their babies.”

“The Orphan Master’s Son” is an ambitious and insightful story. The protagonist, Jun Do is a
classic underdog the reader finds themselves routing for and forgiving him his slightly immoral
acts and character flaws. Johnson not only illuminates the nightmarish and illusive North Korea
but also explores the very meaning of love, sacrifice, truth and fiction, and glory.

The Orphan Master's Son

“The Orphan Master’s Son: A Novel” follows the story of North Korean orphan, Jun Do, as
he grows up and navigates the precarious political environment in his native country. Through
this one character, Johnson takes his reader on a journey through life in a communist country:
from an orphanage, to a soldier and DMZ tunnel inspector, to a government kidnapper, to a
radio transmission translator, to a prison camp, to an assumed member of the elite in Pyongyang.
Johnson expertly mixes the genres of fiction and magical realism to paint a very realistic and
bleak picture of life in North Korea.

In the spirit of the hyperbolic propaganda of the North Korean government, Johnson expertly
convinces his readers to believe the unbelievable. Born in an orphanage, among the lowest rungs
of society, Jun Do is subject to the whims of the government and he is transferred from one
dangerous job to another.

“’Where we are from…stories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state,
everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he’d be wise to start practicing the
piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it
is the man who must change.’”

Over time, Jun Do begins to learn and understand the North Korean art of manipulation and uses
it to manipulate the Dear Leader himself, Kim Jung Il.

Johnson skillfully combines the unrealistic and realistic components of his story. Although this
is a work of fiction, Johnson’s beautifully haunting descriptions describe the culture of North
Korea better than any history book.

“No nation sleeps as North Korea sleeps. After lights-out, there is a collective exhale as heads his
pillows across a million households. When the tireless generations wind down for the night and
their red-hot turbines begin to cool, no lights glare on alone, no refrigerator buzzes dully through
the dark. There’s just eye-closing satisfaction and then deep, powerful dreams of work quotas
fulfilled and the embrace of reunification.”

Most illuminating are the comparisons and comments made about Korea’s greatest enemy,
America. Johnson employs his North Korean characters to look at America through their eyes, a
new perspective for the Western reader indeed.

Sun Moon, the national actress of North Korea, says to an American captive, “How does
a society without a fatherly leader work? How can a citizen know what is best without a
benevolent hand to shepherd her? Isn’t that endurance, learning how to navigate such a realm
alone-isn’t that survival?”

A typical propaganda story rings out over the loudspeakers espousing the virtues of virginity
and the evils of America, “Being the only animal with eyes sharp enough tosspot virginity,
witness our crow circle a Juche Youth Troop, and nod in approval as this lustrous avian performs
an aerial inspection of the reproductive purity. [The crow] won’t let ours become a nation
where people give names to canines, oppress others because of the color of their skin, and eat
pharmaceutically sweetened pills to abort their babies.”

“The Orphan Master’s Son” is an ambitious and insightful story. The protagonist, Jun Do is a
classic underdog the reader finds themselves routing for and forgiving him his slightly immoral
acts and character flaws. Johnson not only illuminates the nightmarish and illusive North Korea
but also explores the very meaning of love, sacrifice, truth and fiction, and glory.

Celebration by Harry Crews

My recent fascination with Donald Ray Pollack led me to Harry Crews who was mentioned on a Pollack jacket liner.

Celebration, Florida. Home to Forever and Forever, a large scale trailer park for the dying and nearly dying. Stump owns it. He lost his right hand by traumatic amputation in a farm accident. This girl wanders into the park and hooks up with Stump. She goes by Too Much and is in search of the 'chance of endless possibility.' After a few months of getting stump-fucked by Stump's stump, she figures out that the problem with all the residents is that they have forgotten how to live. Trailer by trailer, she brings folks to life using a variety of encouragements, few of which Stump understands. Why can't they just breathe until they die.

This is quite the slam on retirement centers. Crews leaves no aspect of retirement living (if he could call it that) and in the end Too Much just walks off. I could see some of the satire, but it wore on me after a while. Not sure I'm going to be in line for much more from Crews. A real acquired taste that didn't suit me.

East Coast Don

The Last Lie by Stephen White

I’ve been a fan of Stephen White’s Dr. Alan Gregory character based thrillers since the beginning in the late 1980’s. Dr. Gregory is a clinical psychologist in Boulder, Colorado married to a deputy district attorney, Lauren. They live on the outskirts of town on a patch of 10 acres with only two homes, both decades old but with magnificent mountain views. In previous books both the husband and wife neighbors are murdered and Alan and Lauren have adopted the couple’s introspective 11 year old son, Jonas. 'The Last Lie' is the latest in the series but not his best. It is like touching base with an old friend and finding you have lost some of your connection.

‘The Last Lie’ begins as the neighboring house (formerly Jonas’ home) is sold. Alan gets off on the wrong foot with his new neighbor, TV-star lawyer Mattin Snow, by walking his dogs on Snow's property. After Snow's housewarming party, to which Alan is not invited, an unnamed female guest claims Snow raped her. With Snow’s livelihood at risk, the lawyers for both Snow and the victim quickly begin to work out a private financial settlement with the victim agreeing to complete confidentiality. Gregory becomes entangled in the case ethically when he learns that the victim is the patient of a psychologist-in-training under his supervision. Shortly after the alleged rape, the hired chef for the housewarming party is murdered. Lauren is assigned to the case as DA. To further complicate the situation, Sam Purdy, a Boulder police detective is Alan’s best friend and Alan’s office partner, Diane is a friend of his new neighbor’s wife. So, with all the professional confidentialities, Alan is unable to share or discover the true story of what took place from any one person. His relationships become tenuous with everyone including his new adoptive son who is still adjusting to his new life and grieving for his parents and former home.

As Alan collects bits and pieces of the events that took place the night of the housewarming party, he finds himself in a unique position to gain justice for all. But his knowledge of the events and his inability ethically to divulge that knowledge put his life and lives of his family in jeopardy.

White is a good story teller but I thought he droned on a bit with the detail in this one. He spends a lot of time developing characters we already know from previous books in the series. We get it he loves Boulder, Colorado. The scenery is beautiful and everyone is health and environmentally conscious….yada, yada, yada. What is interesting is the complexity of Alan's relationships with each character. He is forced to pump them for information in the most subtle ways thereby employing his own professional skills. He never really gets to be himself, always the psychologist even with family and friends. So, I’ll read more Stephen White for old time sake but I think it’s time for some new characters.

Father and Son by Larry Brown

The liner notes for the 2 Donald Ray Pollack books compared his work with the late Larry Brown so I thought that was reason enough to check out Brown.

A cast of characters should help:

The Davis men: Virgil (semi disabled WWII POW) Randolph (aka Puppy), Glen (just paroled after serving 3 yrs of an 8 yr sentence for I guess was vehicular manslaughter), Theron (deceased)

The Blanchards: Mary (single mom, teacher), Bobby (her son, the county sheriff).

Jewel (single mom), David (her 4yo son)

Puppy has just picked up Glen after his parole was granted. Glens meanness dates back to probably elementary school or before. Mean from birth? Probably. Upon getting back to their hometown (unnamed) in northern rural Mississippi (circa 1968), Glen appears to have changed little and seems bent on settling some old scores. Outside of being just downright angry at everything and everybody (except, strangely, a fallen preacher), Glen does little other than smoke, drink, and create trouble everywhere.

And Glen has an eventful week. Jewel was his girl who bore him a son whom he refuses to acknowledge. In his first 48 hours, he beds Jewel and then just leaves, commits a double homicide over a simmering insult, rapes a local girl after getting her drunk, steals money from his father, and assaults Mary.

The question that Brown addresses is whether evil is embedded at birth or due to circumstances. And there are circumstances all over the place:

1. Glen's mom dies while he is in prison and he wasn't allowed to attend the funeral.

2. Virgil, his dad, was a drunk who sought the company of Mary years ago that has continued.

3. Jewel relishes the relationship that David has with his grandfather, but Glen seethes about it.

4. Bobby, the sheriff who is as upright and honorable as Glen is evil, and Jewel have circled each other and grown close, but Jewel said she'd wait for Glen to get out and she did, but regrets that decision.

4. Theron, the deceased brother/son was killed in an accidental shooting at home.

5. Bobby, out on patrol, comes across a white trash couple so far down the evolutionary scale that even the low life folks who are the subject of this story look uptown. The children tell him a tale that shocks even the most hardened of cops.

6. And Glen's mom? Was her death due to cancer, as Glen was told, or by her own hand?

The events circle each other until the expected end occurs by an entirely unexpected manner. The story just sort of fades out like a movie when Bobby, Mary, and Jewel drive up to Virgil's shack where he and David are quietly rocking watching a sunset.

The story revolves around multiple Father/Son relationships: Virgil/Glen, Glen/David, the evolving Bobby/David, and (I'll reveal this cuz I doubt many will run right out to read this exceedingly dark, somewhat depressing, but entirely intelligent and literate book), Virgil/Bobby. Some are contentious, some ignored, some kept secret, but always riveting and will make any father look at his own relationship with his son. One review I read said this book will stick with you for a long time. Can't say that about many of the books I've reviewed here at MRB, but I can say unequivocally that, for me at least, this one will. After but a single work by Brown, were I teaching a course in Modern American Literature, Brown would be on my "Required Reading" list. He's that good.

East Coast Don

Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson

Walter Issacson spent two years doing over 40 interviews to research and write Steve Jobs’ biography. Jobs sought out Issacson and authorized his work but instructed him to tell it like he saw it. Jobs never read the final product. An example of his vision, an accurate portrayal of Steve Jobs’ life became available almost simultaneously with his death.

Born in 1955 to a Wisconsin master’s student and a Syrian PHD, Steve’s unwed parents give him up for adoption. His birth parents stipulate only that his adoptive parents provide Steve with a college education. His adoptive parents living near Palo Alto, CA are not as educated as his birth parents but recognize Steve’s brilliance early on and treat him as special. They encourage his electronic hobbies and forgive his social miscues. Steve decides to go to Reed College in Portland, OR, an academically rigorous and liberal school. Steve quickly loses interest in the academics and feels guilty about spending his parent’s money for naught. He drops out but stays to audit a variety of classes that later serve him well including calligraphy. He also meets some of his lifelong friends that encourage his interest in Buddhism and Zen and lead him to try several recreational drugs including LSD which he credits with expanding his awareness.

Out of money, he returns to Los Altos to live with his parents. He meets Steve Wozniak at an electronics club. Woz is a few years older than Jobs and works for Hewlett Packard as an engineer. Jobs takes a job for Atari, an electronic game company but ends up working the late, late shift because he can’t get along with coworkers. Woz and Jobs are unlikely friends but complement each other in business and invention. Woz is the creative and tireless engineer and Jobs is the visionary product development and marketing wizard. Together they develop the first Apple computer and found the Apple Company. The rest is history. Jobs goes on to change to way we work, play and communicate. He was a pioneer in developing personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

Rather than summarize his life, let me share some interesting information about Jobs. In his 20’s even after founding Apple he dressed like a hippie. He thought his strict vegetarian diet precluded the need for daily showers and simple hygiene. He had a daughter out of wedlock at age 23 but had trouble relating to her even when in her early teens she came to live with him and his wife. His intensity and obsession about work made his personal and family relationships very difficult. He often thought about his own adoption and how it created insecurities in his life even though he loved his adoptive parents. He loved Bob Dylan’s music. He lived very modestly for his income.

He was intensely focused on whatever project he was working on. He bluntly told people when he didn’t like their work but would sometimes later warm up to the idea and claim it as his own. He would many times cry after a confrontation with an adversary. He never did any customer research to ask the customer what they wanted. He simply created products his customer never dreamed they wanted and showed them why they couldn’t do without it. He was a perfectionist in everything he did. His products often were late being released because of the minor last minute changes he would order. He took great care in hiring people but many times hired them on the spot. He believed 'A' people wanted to work with other 'A' people. He had no patience for second rate.

He thought his products should be simple, stylish and completely integrated. The novice should be able to pull it out of the box, plug it in and use it intuitively with little or no instruction, a pleasant experience. He valued developing and marketing first rate products over profit. He would often take long walks to discuss a business venture with an employee or business partner rather than sit in a conference room. He detested Powerpoint style presentations and preferred hands on models when developing products. He made engineering, design, and marketing people all work on the same team during product development rather than pass it down the line from department to department. Jobs and Bill Gates knew each other very well and actually did some projects together. Their greatest philosophical difference in business was Gates’ openness to collaboration and the sharing and selling of ideas and Jobs’ commitment to creating, developing and exclusively marketing his own ideas, to perfection.

I don’t usually read biographies. They generally aren’t that interesting in their mundane chronological listing of events. Plus, I’m usually disappointed to discover the human frailties in supposed great people. But this book was actually fun to read. There were many ‘I remember that’ moments. Jobs truly did change so much in our culture and makes you feel like you lived through something important. And yet you are struck by how such a childish, bad tempered brat could enlist his vision and brilliance to change the world.

The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollack

This 2011 copyright is Pollack's 2nd. The followup to the acclaimed Knockemstiff recently reviewed here. Welcome to the sad, cruel world of southern Ohio and West Virginia circa 1945-1965 where Pollack weaves 3 separate stories into a cohesive statement of despair and the search for redemption desired by desperate people.

Story 1: Mid 1940's. Willard Russell returns from WWII in the south Pacific where he was witness to horrors no one should ever have to remember. No wonder he questions the existence of a God having seen what he's seen. But he is one of the many who came home, rolled up his sleeves, and started back to work and raise a family. He and his wife Charlotte are raising Arvin near Knockemstiff, Ohio in a rundown house off a 2 wheel dirt track just inside the tree line. But his wife takes ill and Willard comes back to religion, praying twice daily with Arvin and offering animal sacrifices at his prayer log up in the woods. When one of 2 drunk hunters comments on how he'd like to tap Willard's wife, Arvin is stunned that his dad doesn't come to her defense. But he does in his own time, beating the guy so severely that he is left to sit on a store's porch with a tomato coup can strung around his neck to catch his drool. Arvin never forgets. No amount of praying can save Charlotte from the cancer. Willard sends Arvin off to live with his wife's parents (Emma and Earskell) in Coal Creek, West Virginia and goes off to the prayer log to keep his wife's memory alive. His parents also have the orphaned pre-teen Helen living with them since her parents died in a fire.

Story 2: Advance now by about 10 years. Roy is a backwoods preacher from Topperville while his crippled cousin Theodore plays the guitar in the background. They do tent services and guest shots at the rural churches in West Virginia where Roy shows his faith by handling spiders. All things considered, they are doing OK. When they do a service in Coal Creek, Roy takes a shine to Helen (story #1) marries her and they bring Lenora into the world. Problem is that Roy has grown closer to Helen's charms (wink, wink) and begins to lose his preaching touch. Roy then feels the Lord is telling him he has the gift of resurrection and wants to try it out on some animals. Theodore convinces him that won't get them a radio deal, that only raising a human will sell. When Roy's first and only attempt fails, Roy and Theodore run off to the carnival sideshow life in the southeast leaving Lenora to live with the only parents his wife Helen ever knew, Emma and Earskill, who now have Arvin and Lenora to raise.

Story 3. Carl and Sandy Henderson are really something. He is a fat prick. With his camera and wife in tow, they pick up 'models' hitchhiking on the backroads of the midwest and plains states (but not Ohio. One of Carl's rules: don't shit in your own bed). They toy with their marks, getting them all hot and bothered over Sandy eventually turning off on some side road, laying out a blanket for their 'model' and Sandy to get it on only to have Carl put a .38 slug in their head, and then take pictures of Sandy and the corpse. In between trips, they mostly squat in a shack near Meade in southern Ohio while Sandy waits tables and turns tricks for extra money. They've been at this for 4 years, heading out each summer for a 2-3 week 'vacation'. And did I mention that Sandy is the sister of the sheriff of the county where they live? Her bro' Lee, as crooked as they come, is certain her hooking is going to eventually kill any chance at reelection.

Pollack collects the seemingly disparate stories together another 10 years later in the middle 1960's. Coal Creek's new preacher has the taste for teenage girls, impregnating Lenora who flips out, leaving Arvin to exact some measure of justice for Lenora. Theodore dies in the woods of Florida setting Roy off on a journey of redemption back to Coal Creek to see the daughter, Lenora, he gave up years ago. And Carl and Sandy decide to 'vacation' in the southeast instead of the midwest. Roy is hitchhiking in Tennessee when he gets picked up by Carl and Sandy. Arvin has to leave Coal Creek after the incident with the preacher and is headed for where his parents met and he was born. En route, his car falls apart and, you guessed it, has to hitchhike where, you guessed it again, Carl and Sandy pick him up. The resulting carnage brings Sandy's cop brother into play.

Whew. I'm not quite sure what to call this. Pollack pulls no punches in giving the reader an unsympathetic portrayal of the pathetic lives of the characters that populate his work. I don't think Pollack's goal is to get the reader to either identify with or become sympathetic to his characters (OK, maybe Arvin). This is fierce and unrelenting storytelling that drew me into his world with none of the cliff-hanger tricks in each chapter so common in mass market fiction these days. Other reviews say Pollack is an important new voice in American literature. I'm not quite sure what he is saying, but that won't stop the reader from paying attention. Serious stuff here, boys and girls. I wonder how long it will be before his 3rd.

East Coast Don

Pronto by Elmore Leonard

With the 3rd season of Justified to begin Jan 12 on FX, I decided to tune up by reading another Elmore Leonard book based on Justified's main character, Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens. While Justified is set in Raylan's home of Harlan County, Kentucky, this takes us back a few years to the time when Raylan, and his ever present Stetson, was a bit of a fish out of water based in Miami.

Harry Arno is a Miami bookie working for Jimmy Cap, a regional mob boss. Harry has his own way of keeping track of his bettors and has run a decent sports book for some time sending a steady stream of money Jimmy Cap's way. But Harry has also had an eye on his future seeing as he is nearing retirement. Having served in Italy during WWII, he's settled on a quiet retirement in a nice little villa in Rapello on the NW Italian coast. Plans to purchase it with the cash he's been skimming from Jimmy Cap. Maybe even take his sometime girlfriend/model Joyce.

The local FBI is having one of its periodic hard ons for the Miami mob and one particularly nasty agent corners Harry and says he's gonna let out the word that Harry has been skimming unless Harry agrees to help the fibbies get evidence on Jimmy Cap.

Harry isn't too keen on that, thinking Jimmy just might believe the feds and put Harry out of a job, permanently. Enter Raylan Givens. Raylan's been teaching weapons at the Glynco, Georgia federal academy. About the time Raylan is due to get reassigned to the field in Miami, his wife tells Raylan she's staying in Glynco with their 2 sons (the sons are a detail left out of the TV show). In Miami, Raylan gets the call to bring Harry in, because that's what the Marshall's service does. About 8 years earlier, Raylan was escorting Harry to Chicago to testify when Harry just walked away when they were changing planes in Atlanta. Same thing happens again in Miami this time.

Harry decides the time is right and bolts Miami for Italy. The scene now shifts to Rapello. Jimmy Cap has sent Nicky, a bit of a dimwitted excuse for muscle eager for his first kill, and the Zip, a Sicilian by birth and unrepentant gun thug by occupation. Raylan knows where Harry is headed, but doesn't know where he'll be living. Jimmy's crew and Raylan arrive about the same time only to engage in an unfriendly tango while trying to find Harry. In the meantime, Joyce answered Harry's call to come to Italy.

The Italian venture turns out not to be to Harry's liking. He, Joyce, and Raylan, after some shenanigans, go back to Miami followed by Nicky and the Zip. Raylan tells Jimmy Cap to lay off Harry that he didn't do anything wrong (but he really had, Raylan's always had a bit of a liking for Harry) and that while in Italy Raylan learned that the Zip was setting himself up to off Jimmy Cap and take over the Miami bookmaking business.

It's hard to go wrong with Elmore Leonard. He has written some of the most colorful mysteries and I've yet to pick up a dud. Leonard carefully gets you to like the good guys and think poorly of the bad guys. There is enough humor to bring a smile to the hard boiled reader and enough blood letting for we male fans. In some ways, Raylan and Pronto reminded me a bit of one of my favorite Leonard characters, Chili Palmer from Get Shorty. Cool, calm, violent only when provoked, but endearing in spite of his history.

When my search for new authors hits a bit of a lull, I know I can always pick up most any Elmore Leonard book (or Ken Bruen, Michael Connelly, et al.) at random and know it'll be an enjoyable read.

East Coast Don

Headstone

This is the 15th Ken Bruen book that has been reviewed in the blog, so you know we, especially me, like Bruen a lot. As usual, the protagonist is Jack Taylor, an alcoholic, former cop, now a private detective. In prior books, Taylor is either struggling to stay sober or agonizing in relapse as he fights to regain his sobriety. In this book, he starts off drunk, does not draw a truly sober breath throughout the book, and is still drunk as the book ends. But, he’s much worse for the effort having been mugged and permanently mutilated, while also inflicting death on the bad guys. Bruen’s book are about character development and are not just driven by unexpected plot shifts, and he frequently makes references to literature and music that his characters are involved with at the moment. Taylor has to be the most literate and cultured of the depraved people I’ve ever read about. This is a good story, but it is also very, very dark. If you are in the mood for an uplifting escape, this is not for you. On the other hand, if you’re in the mood for Irish angst and melancholy, this is your ticket.