LaBrava by Elmore Leonard

On a cold Saturday at the Raleigh flea market, I scored this 1983 book for all of a buck. Leonard is a very reliable author who has penned some very notable books that have ended up on the big screen (e.g. Get Shorty, 3:10 to Yuma, Out of Sight) and TV (my personal current favorite: Justified about the life and times of one Raylan Givens, US Deputy Marshall, and Boyd Crowder, Raylan’s local antagonist).  If you like the kind of books reviewed here at MRB and aren’t watching Justified on the FX network, well, then shame on you, but I digress.

Joe LaBrava is a former IRS auditor and secret service agent who left the service to become a photographer in Miami, and is doing quite nicely, thank you very much. His friend is Maurice Zola, a retired horse bookie who did quite well for himself. He now owns a small residential hotel and Joe likes to take pic of the residents. Maurice wants Joe to go with him down to the county agency that takes in drunks, addicts, and other deranged folks that don’t necessarily need to get inserted in the Miami criminal court system.  

The lady is one a recent widow who looks like she’s been dragged through the wringer and once she sleeps it off, Joe realizes it’s a retired actress he used to lust after when he was about 12 years old. He wants to get to know her, take her picture, and talk about movies all day long.

Richard Nobles and his running bud Cundo Rey (a Cuba boat person) are a couple of grifters who work out a scheme to extort money from ‘that rich actress’. Joe leans on his old secret service surveillance skills and tracks down the source of the extortion. But the arrival of an uncle of Nobles from back in the swamps upsets the (sort of) carefully laid plans and extortion turns to murder putting Joe in the crosshairs of Nobles/Rey while he keeps them in his telephoto lens.

For about half the book, Leonard delicately develops the Joe, Maurice, and Jean (the actress) relationship. One particular entertaining conversation has Joe and Jean talking movies while Maurice is carrying on his own conversation with no one about cooking - very clever and engrossing. We watch Joe realize just whom this femme fatale is and struggle with his developing attraction to Jean while he wonders when she is being herself and when she is acting. Leonard is solid, light-hearted, and can always be counted on to deliver an entertaining diversion  --- and this is no exception. If you are looking for a sure fired diversion and can't decide who to read, most anything from Leonard's long list of titles is a terrific place to start.

East Coast Don