Customer Reviews

Riding the Rap

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There's hardly ever a truly good guy in Leonard's books. Even the best of his protagonists who ride in on white horses to slay evil dragons have a dark side, a dark secret, or a dark sin. And the worst of the baddies all have some marvelous redeeming or hilarious quality that makes you root for them now and then.
There should be, instead of Murphy's Law, a Leonard's Law, in which some seemingly simple scheme will inevitably turn complex and twisted when this master of his genre gets hold of it.
In Riding the Rap, we get to revisit Florida Marshall Raylan Givins as he investigates the disappearance of his girlfriend's ex-lover. Don't ask. It's too complicated to go into details in a short book review. Just trust me: it's filled with the usual Leonard people-stew of weirdos, strange scams, superb dialogue full of lingo and slang, and and and and...
Not his very best, but very good stuff.

Ellmore Leonard can't be beat for character development and pacing, but he's asleep at the wheel on this one. Good to see Raylan Givens in action again. He's even more confident in this book. The bad guy, Chip Ganz, wasn't completely believable, but his no good sidekicks were. Lots of cross/double cross action. I'm ambiguous about the psychic character (which is probably how the author meant her to be).

I'm not quite sure what I missed when I read Riding the Rap but I obviously missed something. I'm afraid that I can't honestly continue the string of rave reviews. Every character in the novel was flat and few were likable. While the intent of the writing style might have been realism, it was just plain irritating. Leonard has probably written some great books but it'll be a while before I go back to the bookstore to try another.

"Riding the Rap" by Elmore Leonard is the sequel to his novel "Pronto" which I think it easily Leonard's funniest novel out of the ones that I have read. "Riding the Rap"

is not as funny as it's predecessor, but it's just as entertaining. We pick up with Harry Arno. Harry is an ex-bookie who has now retired from the business but is going around collecting outstanding debts with help from gardener turned gangster Bobby Deo. When Bobby goes to pick up a debt from a man named Chip Ganz, Chip gives Bobby a proposition (kidnap Harry and steal his three million dollar fortune) Bobby obliges. With the help of one of Chips "henchmen" whose name is Louis Lewis and a beautiful fortune teller named Dawn Navarro, Chip kidnaps Harry and puts him in his attic. They don't think anyone will care that Harry is missing, but they end up being wrong.

Harry's ex-girlfriend Joyce (Joy, when she was a topless dancer) misses him and asks her current boyfriend, cowboy hat wearing US Marshall Raylan Givens.

Raylan doesn't really care that Harry is missing but agrees to Joyce's request and begins to try to track down Harry. Now, Riding the Rap, is equipped with all of Leonard's spectacular dialouge, plot twists, and offbeat characters and it is just as good as "Pronto" but I just think "Pronto" was funnier. Due to the fact that the characters

Tommy Bucks and Nicky Testa (who hilariously critisized each other in "Pronto" are absent for reasons you'll discover after reading "Pronto"). But still a great read...

B+.

elmore leonard is considered one of the best crime writers today.he paints everyday criminals with a certain realisjm and distinction.in riding the rap, an ex mobster gets kidnapped by a guy who owes him money and two other guys.they plan on emptying his bank account and running off to the bahamas.that's when federal marshal raylan givens goes out to bring the ex mobster back safe and sound as a favor to his girlfriend.a gardner, an ex stripper and a fortune teller are only a few of the players in this crime caper.

Having read other books by Leonard, I found "Riding the Gap" to be weak in comparison. The book is a tale of three unlikable hoods who kidnap a bookie with the intention of getting him to give them money he has in an offshore account. The kidnapping is investigated by a marshal, Raylan, who is a likable main character, but that's about it. He seems to stumble thorugh his investiagtion. There are few plot twists and little surprise. If this is the first Leonard novel you read, then you will probably enjoy it more than a seasoned reader and writer of hard boiled mysteries like myself. Instead of reading this book, try get "Get Shorty" by Leonard and then come back to this one. You will then recognize the tremendous skill of this writer.

Add up a simplistic plot, an extremely small set of characters, some underdeveloped dialog and you get 'Riding the Rap'. As a fan of Eddie Bunker, Dannie Martin, Leonard, Tarantino, et. al., I was expecting more effort on EL's part. It's almost as if this was written in a few weeks to fulfill some clause in a contract.

Don't expect one of his finer works if you do pick this one up. It's cardboard-thin compared to his other works.

If someone was to write a full-length parody of Elmore Leonard's series of South Florida crime novels, echoing the rap some give about his tough-guy patois, cardboard characterization, and violently lurching plot shifts, they could ding him up hardly as much as Leonard's own 1995 novel "Riding The Rap".

It's another day for U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens when his girlfriend Joyce asks him to look into the disappearance of her friend, a bookie named Harry Arno. Turns out Arno's kidnapped by some scuzzy reefer toker named Chip with the help of two ex-cons. Their plan: Break Arno into giving up some loot he has stashed offshore. Can Givens find Arno before the crooks get the goods or kill Arno trying?

"Riding The Rap" gets off to a promising if somewhat under-revved start, developing the main setting of Chip's rundown Miami mansion (he lives there while his mother rots in a nursing home) and a female friend named Reverend Dawn who reads fortunes at a cafe. She's the one spark of early life character-wise, as Chip and his buds come off like dim retreads from other Leonard books, especially "Rum Punch" but also "The Hidden" and "Glitz". They idle away a lot of time talking tough and turning nasty as Raylan moves in and turns up the heat.

As psychics go, Dawn is pretty good. So is Raylan, who like many Leonard protagonists is always a move or two ahead of everyone else and ready with a dry wisecrack. Usually, though, the plots are better and the dialogue sharper for you not to mind that so.

"What you'll have to do now is ride the rap, as they say," Raylan says early on to some carjackers who fail to get the drop on him. "It's all anybody has to do." I don't know what that means either, but it certainly sounds tough, don't it?

Actually, Raylan's banter plays better than that of the villains. After one of them blows another away, he has the nerve to tell someone else he "fired" the guy.

Like I say, Leonard critics can have a field day with this novel, crammed with Leonard's literary offenses and almost none of his strengths. Arno is introduced at some length as an alcoholic, as if that will be a plot point or a source of drama later. But it never comes up again. Chip's partners hold up a convenience store, which gets Raylan's notice, but that strand too is left dangling in the breeze.

The plot does move, mostly because Leonard keeps having his characters do sudden things with no explanation. It makes for an interesting read, but leaves a few unanswered questions. Why, if Dawn is so psychic, does she hang out with a bunch of homicidal losers? Why would anyone take Chip's side in a crackpot scheme like this? Why does Raylan put his life on the line for any of these people he sees right through?

Look, it's Leonard, so you're going to have fun reading it. Just not a lot, and it doesn't come close to coming together at the end. Maybe he was playing with his critics on this one, a possibility suggested by the title. Whatever his motive, Leonard was typing more than writing here, and the result is dispiriting.

I guess even Leonard is entitled to an off day. Somehow this book gets stuck in the mud along the way which is so unlike the usual fare from this terrific writer.

The story is about a policeman who's trying to help an old friend that was kidnapped. Unfortunately, after a great beginning, the plot gets kidnapped and dies in an uninteresting shoot-out at the book's conclusion.

I'll still keep reading Elmore Leonard's stuff because he so rarely misses. Buy this one at a discount and read it on a plane; if you don't finish and accidentally leave it on your seat when you land, you won't have missed too much.

Compared to the truly wonderful Elmore Leonard classics, like City Primeval or Fifty-two Pickup, Riding the Rap doesn't come anywhere near the mark. It's disappointing and kind of flat, but very cinematic; surely it will make a good movie because with enough name-brand actors, the plot-line will acquire some lacquer that the book itself lacks. Nothing much happens. The characters are shallow, as if painted in watercolor, rather than the dense oil paints Leonard once used. All in all, it's a pity--disappointing in the extreme.