Customer Reviews

Raylan: A Novel

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In the eternal argument about the chicken and the egg, the crux is on which came first. Similarly, those who read Elmore Leonard's new novel, Raylan, may wonder which came first, the novel or the second season of the TV show Justified (also featuring recurring Leonard protagonist, U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens). There are clear similarities between the two, enough to make you wonder whether the TV show inspired the novel or vice versa. But there are also significant difference, making the book its own experience. It's as if a duck came out of the chicken's egg: you'd still have a bird, but you wouldn't mistake one for the other.

As the book kicks off, Raylan must contend with low-level (and low-intelligence) dope dealers Dickie and Coover Crowe (the equivalent of the Bennett brothers in the show). The two have expanded into stealing kidneys from people and then selling them back to the victims, a plot that obviously has others with more brains involved. The Crowe patriarch, meanwhile, owns a mountain that a coal company wants (bringing up more parallels with the TV show. Assisting a beautiful executive is Boyd Crowder, who is no longer dead as in the Leonard story Fire in the Hole, but (like the TV series) is alive and semi-reformed. Added to the mix is Jackie Nevada, a college girl and brilliant poker place who is a minor fugitive. Raylan will get involved with her while pursuing a trio of stoned strippers who rob banks.

These plot lines are not so much intertwined as consecutive, giving Raylan (the book) the feel of three related novellas. This episodic feel may annoy some but it works for me: after all, this is a book that's more about a character than one overall plot.

After Leonard's one misfire of a novel, Djibouti, Raylan shows that Leonard still can deliver the goods. Even if you're new to Elmore Leonard, this is a book worth reading.

Very hard, even intimidating, to be writing a review of a book by the master of crime fiction, long one of my favorite writers. If I could gush, this would be an easier assignment.

This book is basically two separate novellas, though the second one kind of diverges and can be counted as two stories also (for a total of three; such a deal!).

Raylan makes a great character in a TV series, especially portrayed by an excellent actor. But this book barely glances at Raylan as a character. In fact, in RAYLAN, the title character is sketchily formed, completely flat, relying entirely on the readers to use the TV character as a stand in.

Narrative is minimal, as the story is told almost 100% by dialog, some zesty, but not enough to make this a compelling read.

The topics, organ theft, strip mining of mountain tops, and a talented youth becoming a pro poker player, are reasonably current, but the villains are portrayed too cartoonishly, too insanely to regard the stories as social commentary.

Mr. Leonard has written a characteristically zany, loosely plotted book comprised of several Raylan stories that might make good episodes, but as components of a novel don't hold together well. Readers who have not seen the series or read other books by Mr. Leonard probably shouldn't trespass here.

One of the best known characters created by Elmore Leonard is undoubtedly federal marshal Raylan Givens. Raylan's fame, however, rests less on the role he plays in Leonard's writings, than as the star of the brilliant F/X television series JUSTIFIED, easily one of the most critically acclaimed series on television. To the best of my knowledge (based on my own perhaps flawed reading) Raylan appears in three of Leonard's novels and one of his short stories. He was initially in the novel PRONTO, in which he intervenes to save the life of a Miami bookie and then later in RIDING THE RAP, in which he once again tries to save the life of the same bookie. Both are very good novels, though I would not rate either among his very best books, like SWAG or LaBRAVA. Raylan reappeared later in the short story "Fire in the Hole," which I have in his great short story collection WHEN THE WOMEN COME OUT TO DANCE, which is going to be reprinted shortly as FIRE IN THE HOLE. Clearly the publisher is trying to take advantage of the free publicity offered by the TV series.

The Raylan Givens of the books occupies a slightly different universe than the Raylan Givens of the television series. While Leonard has been enthusiastic about the series (although he is listed as an executive producer, he actually does no work on the show at all, the title undoubtedly being a part of the agreement for the producers of the show using his character), saying that Timothy Olyphant delivers his lines precisely the way he envisioned when writing them, he does insist that they didn't get the hat right. This is not a bad thing, in my opinion. Think of the photos you saw of Lyndon Johnson wearing his hat in the sixties. That is precisely the kind of hat that Leonard had in mind.

Apart from the hat, there are odd parallels between the two Raylan Givens. This is due in part to the fact that the TV series has borrowed liberally from the two novels and short story in which Givens originally appeared. For instance, Harry, the bookie in the two novels, appears on the TV series in a much younger incarnation. Several scenes in the books appear in the show. For instance, in an early Season One episode two gunmen are hired to go after Raylan. Encountering him on a road they try to approach him from a distance. One keeps saying, "We just want to talk." Raylan tells him that if he takes another step closer he is going to shoot him. He takes a step and Raylan shoots him. That scene original appeared in PRONTO. The entire plot of the novel RIDING THE RAP is utilized in a Season One episode, with a number of minor modifications. Nonetheless, the resemblances between the episode and the novel are deep and profound. The plot of the short story "Fire in the Hole" provides the narrative for the TV series Pilot, the only major difference being that Boyd Crowder did not die in the series. In fact, due to the TV series Boyd, who unquestionably was killed in the short story, was retroactively resurrected from the dead, the gunshot miraculously not damaging any major organs, all so that this enormously popularly character was able to appear in the novel RAYLAN.

There is a major difference between the three earlier Raylan Givens stories written by Leonard and the new novel RAYLAN. The first three clearly exerted enormous influence on the series, excepting the style of the hat. In the new novel, the TV series perhaps influenced the book more. The plot is not quite consistent with events in the TV series. I'm going to avoid many specifics because to delve into them would be to raise up spoilers for either the book or the series, so let me just say that characters in the book die who do not die in the series, while at least one character who dies in the show dies differently in the novel. It is almost as if the two exist in parallel universes, much like the DC superheroes in Earth One and Earth Two. The show and the novel are both alike and very different.

I'm not entirely clear on whether Leonard wrote the book prior to Season Two of the show (though I suspect he did) or whether he wrote it afterwards. I believe he probably wrote this last winter and that there is a chance he showed the manuscript to the show's writers. Either way, reading the novel after having seen Season Two of JUSTIFIED is a rather schizophrenic experience. As a result, while I love Leonard as a writer, I found I enjoyed this Raylan Givens story considerably less than the previous ones. There are some splendid moments (one involving a bathtub and a kimono is an example), but it almost felt as if in this book Leonard was trying to write about a character who had taken on a life of his own. It is as if Raylan has been publically redefined in a way over which Leonard has minimal control.

RAYLAN is really not a novel so much as a collection of overlapping short stories. The main stories are 1) the story of a group of thieves who steal kidneys off people and then try to sell them back, 2) Carol, born to a miner but now working for the mining company, and her employee Boyd Crowder try to pull off a deception about a crime, 3) a petty thug who forces young women to rob banks for him, and 4) a young woman who plays high stake poker, funded by a local horse breeder. None of the stories are at all bad, none quite like the TV series (though there are definite resemblances and it will be interesting to see if any of the new stories will feature in Season Three of the show), but none especially unforgettable.

All in all, I would rate RAYLAN the weakest of the four Raylan Givens stories I've read so far. I would rank them all in this order: "Fire in the Hole," RIDING THE RAP, PRONTO, and RAYLAN. Mind you, RAYLAN isn't bad; it simply isn't up to Leonard's highest standards. That is still higher than most of the books published today.

Raylan is truly amazing. Elmore Leonard doesn't seem to be getting older - just better. Raylan is reminiscent of Leonard's The Hot Kid - tough as they come with right on his side. Raylan is a Federal Marshal on the hunt for bad guys. He finds them in this book. There are three stories all linked together. The bad guys are bad through and through - and no denying it. Raylan is not like what you find on television. There's nothing sanitized about this cop. Shooting the bad guys? No problem. The stories take place in coal-mining West Virginia and Kentucky. The language and writing style Leonard uses will make you believe you're there witnessing the events. An amazing book by an amazing author.

I've been a big Elmore Leonard fan for 30 plus years and read everything he releases. I've also become a big fan of the television series Justified - which Leonard produces and is based on the lead character featured in Raylan. I had some trepidation that a book based on a telelvision series which was based on a short story might not fit up to Leonard's usual standards. Could it be that Leonard would "call it in" on this one just to capitalize on the popularity of the TV show?

Luckily, that is not the case. Raylan is a great book that stays true to the series and the original characters. Leonard's mastery of the local dialogue helps make his books great; Raylan is full of his "Southern criminal speak". At first glance the plot could seem a little worn; someone is stealing kidneys and leaving people in a bath tub full of ice; but Leonard pulls it off with a book full of great characters. A fun and fast read!

I read Elmore Leonard's original Raylan Givens stories in the 90's. I recall reading Pronto and Riding The Rap, and picturing a young Clint Eastwood as the character. So revisiting Raylan in this novel was an odd experience for me, as the reader. First and most obvious, the TV series has become imbedded in the public consciousness, and Graham Yost and Tim Olyphant (to whom both the book is dedicated) have taken ownership of the popular version of the character. So as a fan of Justified, it's impossible to read the novel and not cast Olyphant in the lead. It works, because Justified has been so faithful to Leonard's vision. But there are differences. The Raylan in prose is drawn by Leonard's mastery of dialogue, and the character inhabits a universe that is pure Dutch Leonard. Meaning the characters, sets, and plot(s) are stripped down to a point where they exist on the edge of a razor. Where television, in order to fuel an episodic engine, cranks up the melodrama and piles layers of development on all featured characters, Leonard's work has always been about the economics of "less is more." Leonard has always been able to feed the reader the life history of a character (Dewey Crowe, for instance), and take little more than a single line of dialogue to accomplish it. So readers approaching Leonard or the prose-Raylan, for the first time, may have difficulty adjusting, if their expectation is for the novel to supplement Justified. They will find an alternate universe in this novel that, while familiar, contains enough subtle differences and distortions to unsettle them. (Reviewers calling this book "fan fiction," I would suspect to be deeply unsettled.)

That said, I think Leonard made a big mistake letting Justified pilfer his story for scripts. The book works best when it is completely detached from Justified plots, and the crossover elements do nothing but create confusion for any reader who also follows the show. One could call the effect "Crisis on Infinite Harlans." For instance, I think it is clear that Boyd Crowder of the Justified universe is much smarter than prose-Boyd. But when both are featured in the same "big coal" storyline, it's nearly impossible for the reader to reconcile prose-Boyd's actions and motivations with what the Justified fan knows of TV-Boyd's actions and motivations. I tried hard to compartmentalize, but that is asking a lot from a reader, and the end result was the constant question of "Why is he doing this?" surfacing during my reading. A similar effect occurs with the Pervis character who, while drawn very differently from Mags Bennett, still suffers from comparison with the finest television supporting role of 2011.

There is a lot to like here. Especially for Leonard fans like myself who enjoyed Raylan before he became a Tuesday-night TV sensation. For two-thirds (maybe a little more) of the novel, I got exactly what I wanted. My hope is that when Dutch returns once again to Raylan in prose, he keeps the character's feet on the ground of his own reality, and let's Earth 2 deal with their own crisis.

So . . . the jacket is covered with blurbs: "the best suspense writer in America"; "the dean of crime writers"; "a master of narrative"; "the best in the business" and the one that's closest to the truth: "his writing is pure pleasure."

I had just finished the newest Robert Crais novel, Taken, and I turned to Elmore Leonard's Raylan. The Crais novel is full-tilt, piledriver suspense; the Leonard novel is pure pleasure. You gulp down the Crais novel a paragraph or page at a time; with Leonard you pause over every delicious word.

Leonard usually writes two kinds of novels--the dark, brooding, soul-searing book like Killshot or the lighter, Runyonesque story of lame criminals who generate more laughter than violence (Freaky Deaky, Get Shorty). Raylan (whose title character is now a fixture in the FX series Justified) is among the latter books, but with a strong regional twist. Leonard can nail Detroit, of course, and both Hollyweird and Miami. Here he nails the Kentucky coal country.

Fundamentally, Leonard is the master of dialogue, dialogue that reveals character, culture, inclination, motivation and essential nature in a single word. Black, white, male, female, wily fox or 78 IQ, hillbilly, faux hillbilly or more-hat-than-cattle Texan . . . he nails them all and always in the language of their time and place. Leonard lives in upscale Detroit; I grew up on the Kentucky border and have been through Shelbyville, Indiana on a Greyhound bus more times than I like to remember and Leonard knows it and feels it better than anybody, including the indigenous population.

Raymond Chandler thought that one of the hallmarks of crime writing was a realist approach to language; characters should speak as the real people of the time speak. Leonard has internalized that notion for almost 60 years. He's pushing 90 and he still has the best ear in the game. Plus, he doesn't shrink from the writing of dialect, which may be the most difficult thing to do in crime writing. It can't be mannered; it can't be distracting; it has to be authentic and it has to be readable, even with the distortions of spelling and grammar that it entails. Leonard is its absolute master.

And the story: it's actually three interconnected stories, with interlacing between what could have been three freestanding novellas instead of an episodic but integrated slice of Raylan Givens' life. The first deals with kidney thefts, the second with coal mining, the third bank thefts and high stakes poker. The third story introduces a character of whom we might see more: Jackie Nevada, Butler University senior and Texas hold `em player extraordinaire. All three of the stories are wonderful; all involve memorable characters who are represented with drop-dead perfect dialogue.

I was a little hard on EL in my review of Djibouti, which had its moments but never quite came together for me. Now I'm on the floor, worshipping. This is as close to perfection in regional crime writing as we're ever likely to get. Do not miss it.

This is a solid effort--much better than such Leonard failures as Djibouti--but far from his best (which are among the best in the genre). Others have explained the plot well.

Because this is basically 3 intertwined novellas, none of the novellas has nearly the punch of a first rate novel: none of the novellas has time for impressive twists and turns and the wrongdoers are not only not memorable, but ridiculous. The smooth coal company lawyer who murders someone in front of a witness for little reason is the worst, but not by much. Still, Raylan is an entertaining hero and it is a fun quick read.

It is similar in quality to the tv series featuring Raylan--fun, but not nearly the quality of a good movie.

The television series Justified has propelled Elmore Leonard's character Raylan Givens into millions of homes. This is the third Raylan novel and is a lot of fun. The book began when Leonard decided that he needed to be part of the writing process. He wrote several story ideas and then condensed them into a single novel. This explains some of the structure. If it seems that the first story just ends early on and then another picks up, that is why.

The stories that make up the novel were intended to give the writers of Justified material to mine. They did so. Viewers of the television show will recognize several plots and themes from season 2 of the series. From interviews it seems clear that we may see more of them this season.

In Raylan we run into some relatives of Dewey Crow who decide to diversify their pot business by adding stolen body parts. Leonard takes the classic urban legend of the man with the stolen kidneys and gives it life. We also have a group of pot addled strippers turned into bank robbers, a college girl putting herself through school playing poker, a violent mine company woman, Boyd Crowder, and the usual assortment of strange and wonderful characters. If you are a fan of Justified, do yourself a favor and get this book. If you are just looking for a good book, do yourself a favor and get this book.

Elmore Leonard never seems to add a second word when one will do, whether in dialog or description. Raylan is his latest novel featuring U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens as the central character. Readers who are unfamiliar with this character from previous novels or from the TV series, Justified, may find the character developed in this novel to be a bit spare. For fans, this is a worthy installment featuring an intriguing character, and the writing soars. The subject matter of drug and body part sales in former coal mining country provides a lively backdrop of characters and situations for Givens to play out his role. Readers who like well written crime fiction are those most likely to enjoy this novel.

Rating: Three-star (Recommended)