Just Play Dead (Elmore Leonard Library) [Mass Market Paperback]

Dan Gordon (Author), Gordon (Author)

Book Description

Series: Elmore Leonard Library | Publication Date: June 1999

In a huge Hawaiian mansion by the sea live Jack Wolfe, ruthless millionaire, and his knockout wife, ex-hooker Nora. Weary of marriage, she seduces dim-bulb aging surfer Chad to kill her husband. But then it seems as if Jack wants Chad to kill him -- or rather, he wants it to look like he was killed so he can avoid legal prosecution and begin a new life. He offers the kid a new and better deal. Then it gets complicated: who are allies and who are conspirators is not known. It's all observed by Hawaiian Jewish detective Dani Kahana -- also in love with Nora. This complicated tale ends explosively with a hilarious and unexpected close.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Gordon, a successful screenwriter (Murder in the First) has written a novel destined for the big screen. The only Jewish cop in Hawaii, Dani Kahane still has a crush on Nora Wolfe, the straying wife of Jack, an untrustworthy millionaire. Nora threw Dani over and took up with a blond surfer and failed NFL-star named Chad. Jack, badly strapped for cash, enlists Nora and Chad's aid in faking his death?for the insurance, of course. Jack will appear to have been murdered, and he and Nora can split the insurance money, with Chad as the fall guy. But both Jack and Nora are incredibly devious, and when the inevitable happens, Dani has to sort out the pieces. Despite some interesting plot twists, the characters are so uniformly unpleasant that readers may be rooting for all of them to be done in, even though a sequel is planned. Not an essential purchase.?Dean James, Murder by the Book, Houston, Tex.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

Hawaiian-Jewish cop Denil Kahane limns Nora Wolfe, who has hired a boy-toy to kill her husband, like this: ``Thirty-seven or thirty-eight is the perfect age for a woman. . . The rose is no longer a dewy bud holding tight to its promise, rather it is in full long-petalled sweet high-test perfumed blood-red and glorious bloom.'' Gordon's funfilled debut novel carries a big hook. Aside from noir plotting familiar as an old slipper, the most attractive features of his breakthrough from the prose-shrinking strictures of screenwriting (the grittily bravura Murder in the First) are Gordon's firespurting pinwheel rhapsodies on women, adolescence, and whatever he's looking at when his loose and swirling endorphins explode. On Maui, Nora Wolfe seduces monosyllabic teen-surfer Chad into the old Postman Always Rings Twice/Double Indemnity ploy of you-murder-my-rich-husband-Jack-and-we'll-have-sex-forever. At 15, Nora was a runaway tied to a druggie rock musician who broke her jaw; at 20, she was fresh meat in L.A. and had her jaw broken by a German industrialist; at 35, she shot a Japanese trick twice, killing him, then fell under the wing of Jack Wolfe. But today Jack is actually broke and wants Chad to ``murder'' him so Nora will get Jack's $15M insurance payoff. In Hawaii a body is not needed for a death declared, only a murderer. So Nora need only say Chad offed Jack for the death to be valid. Where's Jack's body?--why, eaten by sharks! When Nora and Chad plan a triple cross, and Jack a quadruple, the plot flipflops: each side knows fully and agrees to the other's motives. This half-serious noir satire could have a large but brief future, while Gordon's deliriously erotic prosebursts may well win him a lasting readership. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312965672
• ISBN-13: 978-0312965679
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 3.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,938,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Ruthless People" moved to Hawaii, February 10, 1998

By 

Author Bill Peschel "Writers Gone Wild" (Hershey, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Play Dead (Hardcover)

Sun and sand seems incompatible with the nightmare vision of noir, but as Dan Gordon shows in "Just Play Dead" that passion, lust and hate retains their full power, even in Hawaii.Running a fast 227 pages, with narrower margins and larger type than is usually seen, "Just Play Dead" speeds along with the pace of a Hawaiian vacation, and Gordon ties up the schemes a little too hurriedly and throws in some resolutions that were not properly founded. We don't know if Dani Kahane is a good cop, but he is a fascinating character, and before the last page, Gordon pulls one last joker from the deck that promises that the scheming will continue in the sequel. This is a fun read, with scheming and double-crossing in the style of "Ruthless People" and "The Grifters."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Just Play Dead" a very fun read, October 20, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Play Dead (Hardcover)

This book took a few moments to adjust to the tone and pacing but once I did, it was one of the most fun reads I've had in ages. The characters were devious, cunning and I felt lucky to be inside their sick but fascinating little world. Dani Kahane, the narrator seems as helplessly attracted to these people as I became... I walk around now feeling as though I know Nora and Jack Wolfe, Joan Chan and Danil Kahane and I miss them and their little world now that I've finished the book. If you're looking for a pleasant, quick read that's going to exercise your brain enough but not too much, this is one to pick up.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It doesn't even deserve the 1 star., October 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Just Play Dead (Elmore Leonard Library) (Mass Market Paperback)

I found that it moved very slow. I had to force myself to finish it. This was the first book I have read by Dan Gordon, and I have to say it will probably be the last. If I could go back to the discount store and get my money back I would.