Pronto by Elmore Leonard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars My book recommendation for this month is not “a” book recommendation, but a body of work. Like many writers, I want to pay tribute to Elmore Leonard, who recently passed away. He was for me the quintessential writer of quirky, engaging and thoroughly believable dialogue. When reading his books, I never much paid attention to the plots because I was too engaged in his characters. You got to know them in the course of a book, and you wanted to spend time with them. Even most bizarre, troublesome and sometimes evil characters were compelling enough that you wanted to know more. Never a wasted word, never a slow space in the telling of his books, he was one of a kind. I will miss him greatly. I recommend any of his books from his early westerns like Valez Is Coming and Hombre to his Raylan Givens novels in the present. If you’ve never read one, give him a try. If you had, read one anyway, if only to remember how good he was.
Terry Reviews: The Work of Elmore Leonard