“Raylan” is the latest from crime author Leonard, available online and from new book dealers in Denver. Main character Raylan Givens is a U.S. Marshall in Kentucky coal country. We’ve seen him before. He’s appeared in two previous books by the hard-boiled Leonard, namely “Pronto,” and “Riding the Rap.” Raylan has killed count ‘em seven villains in prior adventures, and ups his body count in this book. Raylan is a collection of related crimes prosecuted by agent Givens while undercover among the motley crew of unemployed coal miners and moonshiners deep in the hills more so than a novel proper. If the hooch won’t turn a profit they grow pot and sell it, the fiends. How can an undercover marshall protect an executive from the most hated mining outfit in the whole territory? Should a sworn official of the court of justice play to one more comely poker face turned evil? Or stand firm in its boots, guns blazing, badge held high? Questions like these are the spinal column of this book, whence branch forth all the winding nerves of its subplots. To paraphrase the great Mark Twain, pwersons looking for a moral in it should be shot, probably by Raylan himself (if not Bradley Sands’ memorable parody of this kind of trigger happy überman, Rico f’n Slade).
This was my first Elmore Leonard book, a high stakes shoot-em-up. I’ve recently developed an interest in his forerunners, writers like Jim Thompson and David Goodis, and was interested to study his development of the standard motif. I can well understand the respect afforded him. He’s a master of the form (with added gunshots and mayhem).
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