52 Pickup [LARGE PRINT] (Hardcover)

by Elmore Leonard (Author) "HE COULD NOT GET USED TO GOING to the girl's apartment..." (more)
Key Phrases: model studio, colored guy, Bobby Shy, Leo Frank, Alan Raimy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Probably no one knows this nation's rogues, bent cops, and sleazebags better than Elmore Leonard."
-- Newsday

Product Description
A New York Times Bestselling Author

Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell had had only one affair in his twenty-two years of happy matrimony. Unfortunately someone caught his indiscretion on film and now wants Harry to fork over one hundred grand to keep his infidelity a secret. And if Harry doesn't pay up, the blackmailer and his associates plan to press a lot harder - up to and including homicide, if necessary. But they picked the wrong pigeon for their murderous scam.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 357 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; 1 edition (December 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786280778
• ISBN-13: 978-0786280773
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #871,021 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun novel that falls apart at the end, June 10, 2003

By	The Gooch (Temecula, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 52 Pickup (Mass Market Paperback)

How does one go about judging a suspense novel? The easiest criteria is probably the level of difficulty you have in putting the book down because of how heavily you get hooked into the plot. By this standard, Elmore Leonard's '52 Pickup' was a great novel. I read the entire 300+ pages in two sittings, which could have easily been condensed into one had I not forced myself to put it down the first time knowing I needed something to read on a 4-hour flight the next day. Leonard writes great characters, even better dialogue, and creates a thrilling cat-and-mouse game where the hero and villains are constantly gaining and losing the upper hand against each other. Watching the hero of this novel, Harry Mitchell, struggle to balance running his successful business amidst the threat of a union slowdown, reconciling his marriage after confessing to his ill-advised affair, and dealing with three thugs who are trying to extort large sums of money from him, made for some very entertaining reading.

There is another standard for judging a suspense novel that I found '52 Pickup' wasn't as successful at, which is the level of believability. The problem I had with this novel was that for the ending to work required that the respective IQ's of the three main villains had to abruptly drop about 100 points each. I just found it odd that three guys who so expertly planned their crimes in the early portion of the novel would suddenly become so gullible later in the same book. I'm not saying that Mitchell's method of dealing with his extortionists was completely unrealistic, just that I thought everything sort of fell into place too easily. In particular, I found it hard to believe that a criminal as intelligent as Alan Raimy would have been so careless in the final scene of the book. Also, while Leonard wisely made Mitchell a former war hero to make his grace under pressure a bit more realistic, I did find it to be a bit much how he seemingly never felt fear, no matter how grave his situation became.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well Written, but the Story Falls Apart in the Second Half, March 25, 2007

By	Thriller Lover (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: 52 Pick Up (Paperback)

52 PICK UP is, like all of Elmore Leonard's novels, very well written. This book was originally written in the early 1970s, but holds up very well. With a few minor adjustments, it could take place in modern times.

The story essentially deals with a blackmail plot against an adulterous businessman in Detroit. The first half, which is very strong, shows how the businessman is blackmailed, and how he initially responds. The second half, which is far weaker, deals with how the businessman decides to strike back and take justice into his own hands.

The second half of 52-PICK UP is something of a letdown, because it is not particularly believable. Leonard sets up a great, realistic story in the first half, only to resolve the story with an "action movie" type conclusion that requires a major suspension of disbelief.

This novel is further hampered by the absence of any likable characters, with the exception of the wife of the protagonist. Many of the players in this book act in a venal, brutal manner toward one another. I understand that Leonard is trying to be dark and gritty, but the non-stop nastiness does get repetitious and tiresome after a while. This novel lacks the humor of Elmore Leonard's later work.

52 PICK UP is a decent early effort, but I'd recommend trying some of Leonard's later crime books first, or one of his westerns.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Box Canyon, March 28, 2004

By	S. Harris (Spotsylvania, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: 52 Pickup (Mass Market Paperback)

This was a 5 star thriller that fell apart at the end. 52 Pickup was written in the early 70s, so you have Leonard just as things are really starting to roll for him. Great dialogue, great characters, with crime, adultery, and porn spicing the stew. It's also one of Leonard's most brutal novels. There is one murder that is just shocking, but there is also the suggestion of sodomized rape as part of a kidnapping. You really hate the bad guys in this one. The hero, Harry Mitchell, is standard flawed good guy stuff. He's doing a slow burn while dealing with his problem -- which is his own doing, a twist for Leonard fans. The ramifications of this problem, Harry's adultery, and how it touches (and ends!)so many lives is the effective subtext of the novel. The exchanges between Harry and Barbara, Mitchell's wife, are a good showcase for those that appreciate Leonard's mastery of dialogue. But what makes them a bit different than other Leonard exchanges, is that the topic is adultery, and how a married couple tries to deal with betrayal and damaged love.

The downside: the ending. It's not just that it's something of a disappointing demise for the main bad guy. (You'd like to see Harry do something with drills and blowtorches.) No, the ending is just clumsy and from a writing view point, and not well executed. And, perhaps worse, just not believable. The exchange (or the obviously ironic "pickup" or payoff), is so clunky, that no bad guy, especially a Leonard bad guy, would of been fooled. But maybe that's the point, there is no neat package of an ending, since Harry's "mistake" was the first domino. He will have to live with the damage he has caused, especially to his wife and his deal lover the rest of his life.