I decided to treat myself to an old Elmore Leonard book.
Elmore Leonard sidebar:
Elmore Leonard novels that were adapted into films:
- The Ambassador
- *52 Pick-Up
- The Switch (as the 2013 film Life of Crime)
- Rum Punch (as the 1997 film Jackie Brown)
- Ordell played by Samuel Jackson Jr.
- Louis played by Robert De Niro
- Get Shorty (1990; film 1995)
- Out of Sight (1996; film 1998)
- Justified, from the book Raylen, about Raylan Givens.
I enjoyed all of them, but I really liked 52 Pick-up and Jackie Brown. Now that I know this book is out there as a movie called Life of Crime, I will try to find it and watch it!
Note that Ordell and Louis from this book are also in Rum Punch played by heavyweight actors! As I’m reading the book, every time Ordell appears, it’s as if Samuel Jackson has walked into the room and started talking. He really captured that guy!
In the movie of this book, it’s the rich white people that get the star treatment, Jennifer Aniston and Tim Robbins as Mikey and Frank. Aniston hits the mark on the cuteness/hotness scale, but when I picture Mickey I don’t picture her … just a little quibble 🙂
Sidebar to the sidebar:
I just went to this site asked the internet if The Switch is before or after Rum Punch and found so many interesting things! Leonard wrote a number of paired books. Swag and Stick, Get Shorty and Be Cool, and more!
The Book
Five pages in. I’m reconvinced that Elmore Leonard is a special talent as a writer, in a different league than Robert Parker and all my other reliable authors. There’s just so much going on in his characters and situations.
SPOILER ALERT — I tell most of the plot below, because it’s just so much fun!
Setup Part 1: – Mickey and Frank
In the first chapter we meet the wealthy Detroit suburbanites:
- Mickey the mom dotes on their teenage tennis star son.
- She’s way more interesting than her hubby.
- She’s cute, has a cute name and cute little body, gets hit on by the former football star hunks from the Country Club, and she is so damn tired of being cute.
- She is the narrator of most of the book.
And of course the narrator always sounds smarter than everyone else 🙂
- Frank the dad is a good golfer.
- He still looks good and has a flat belly.
- He drinks way too much and is very sensitive about how Mickey is so much better than him in every way.
- He’s running a little scam with a bank in the Bahamas that Ordell found out about.
- He has a hot young woman on the side down there!
- Bo the teenager is a good club tennis player who coul possibly be a good person if he listened to his mom instead of his dad.
- I think he’s just going to be a bit player in our little drama.
They bicker constantly. We hear mom’s side of it. Frank drinks too much and is pretty useless I think except for all that money he brings home.
Setup Part 2 – Ordell and Louis
In the next chapter the cast of the other half of the drama is introduced:
- Ordell is a slick looking, slick talking black guy who has many jobs, but always figures out a way to augment his income with a little larceny on the side. As mentioned he is identical to Samuel L Jackson in my mind.
- Louis is a mid-sized trim, muscular white guy who just got out of the federal pen for some kind of non-violent crime. I don’t identify him as Robert DeNiro in my mind, but it would be easy to do.
- Richard is a gun-nut weirdo who Ordell picked up somewhere. He lives in his mom’s little crackerbox house all by himself since mom died. The house is why he’s in this story. Ordell thinks it is the perfect little spot to stash Mickey in.
He provides dark comic relief as a (forgive me) a classic MAGA nutcase before his time. It all goes bad for him down the road.
Middle of the book, kidnapping happens
Frank is off to the Bahamas, “meeting Japanese investors”, but really banging Melanie, the tall, buxom American cutie he’s got stashed down there.
Mickey is home, trying to fend off the football hunk who showed up un-invited for a little romance.
As luck would have it, the kidnap happens Right Then!! The crew sneaks into the house, finds the golfer dude with his paws all over Mickey, they conkhim on the head and lock him in the closet and carry Mickeyaway.
Ordell goes to the Bahamas, ransom fails
Now things get really complicated!
- Frank misses the $1,000,000 deadline.
- Ordell finds out that Frank had filed divorce papers before he left!
So he doesn’t have much incentive to pay ransom to get her back safely.
If they kill Mickey they would be doing him a favor. - Ordell finds that out by taking Melanie out into the Carrbean and pushing her out of the boat.
- Ordell meets Frank.
Louis and Mickey get baked, figure stuff out
Back in Detroit, Louis and Mickey are at Richard’s house. She’s still officially a prisoner, but things have broken down a bit. Louis tosses the stupid Halloween mask and they hang out on the sofa, discussing the guy they locked in the closet and such matters. Mickey has never smoked pot before … it’s kinda cute!
But still … they HAVE kidnapped her, and the ransom is NOT being paid, so something’s gotta give.
There’s thirty pages or so where everybody starts thinking about how to double cross everyone else. Richard tries to rape Mickey one more time, and the complicated outcome of that is that he is blasted to pieces by the Detroit Police. The world is a little bit safer for it!
Everybody comes back to Detroit, including Melanie!
Everybody talks to everybody. Nobody gets hurt!
It was very entertaining, but not really worth reporting on. Louis and Mickey might stick together. Melanie and Frank are probably done, but not really clear. Melanie and Ordell barely got started.
The last few sentences are Frank waiting for a phone call and Melanie trying out the Nixon masks they got for the heist. 🙂