Customer Reviews

The Switch

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really like Elmore Leonard and have enjoyed and respected much of his work. But when reading this book I felt that Elmore had really mailed it in this time. The big "surprise" ending comes as no surprise, and the book fizzles rather than sizzles. In this book, the characters are more like cartoons than people. All in all, I was disappointed, and was glad when it was over so I could read something better.

Just so you know I'm not an Elmore basher, I just finished reading "The Hot Kid" and loved it.

This one just seemed rushed to me. Usually when I read Leonard, I end up feeling like one of the characters. He makes you really feel his story with his characterizations and dialogue. Just too generic and formulaic. My wife read the blurb on the back and said "sounds like alot of other books" and she ended up being right. I like Rum Punch much better because it was more complex and we saw more of the same characters but got deeper into them.

Two small time hoods decide they can get away with kidnapping the wife of a wealthy businessman and scoring $1,000,000 ransom. They hook up with a rent-a-cop who collects Nazi memorabillia. While being held hostage the victim comes to the realization that her life as a wife, mother and country club goer was quite empty. She decides to go over to the hoodlums. Kind of like a Stockholm syndrome situation. A decent but not particularly gripping read.

Slow, terse, and unfocused. Elmore Leonard's 'The Switch' is one of his more convoluted works. A testament to late `70's upper-crust living and a some shady characters quick-money scheme that falls flat - much like this book.

Leonard's talent for developing personalities in small doses stands shaky in `The Switch'. Leonard quickly develops Mickey Dawson, a well-to-do wife living the country club lifestyle in suburban Detroit. Her life is set on appeasing her husband, Frank, a real estate businessman with a penchant for golf and booze. When two ex-cons contrive an idea to kidnap the wife, the plot then takes a twist even the ex-cons didn't anticipate. The book's ending, which leaves you with some intentions, is uninspiring.

Slow in reading and heavy in dialogue - leaning between insight and contemplation, this book is not one of Elmore Leonard's better offerings.

The Switch by Leonard has the base storyline use in the great 80s hit film "Ruthless People" with Danny Devito. Two hapless criminals kidnap the wife of a rich man and demand ransom- ransom he does not want to pay as they are embroiled in divorce proceedings. Set in the tony country club world of suburban Detroit this is classic Leonard. Wry, dry, ironic, funny and yet poignant at times. His characters come to life and stay with you.
Louis and his fellow ex-con buddy Ordell, re-team up in Rum Punch- the book another film was based on- "Jackie Brown".
Read a couple of Leonard novels and you will be coming back for more and more!

Mickey Dawson is cute but naive. Engulfed in the social world of tennis and country clubs, Mickey is out of touch with her life and almost a zombie with her uncaring husband, Frank. And she really should know Frank is up to no good.

Famed thriller writer, Elmore Leonard, looks carefully at Mickey's marriage in THE SWITCH and finds it empty. But Mickey takes a long time to get it. Rationalizing, she makes excuses. Numb, she avoids confrontation. Ignorant, she finally gets smart after meeting an ex-con with a botched up plan.

But Mickey does grow and she doesn't get mad, she gets even. Leonard shows her switching from a suburban zombie into a complete woman. Too bad the rest of her friends at the country club couldn't be switched on too.

Elmore Leonard does it again, with this hip tale of a kidnapping gone horribly right. Crisp dialogue, smartly paced action, great characters. It's unpredictable but always believable. It's Elmore at his finest.

New York Times best selling author of Tishomingo Blues, Elmore Leonard, writes the story The Switch. It is about a woman named Mickey, who lives with her wealthy husband Frank, and their son Bo. When Frank and Bo leave for business and a tennis tournament, Mickey's plans take a sudden detour. Leonard changes the point of view every few chapters, and introduces us to the characters Ordell and Louis who met in prison where they were doing time for grand theft auto. Ordell and Louis decide to join together and kidnap the wife of a loaded Detroit developer and hold her for ransom. Running into Mickey, they keep her locked up in a friend's house. The kidnappers find that not only is Frank gone on a business trip; he is also staying with another woman, and has also filed for a divorce just before he left. Ordell and Louis have to switch plans and find a way to get the money, but when Mickey gets an idea of what's going on, she wants her share of sweet revenge. Overall I enjoyed the book a lot. The book is twisted all over, you never know what's going to happen next. If you enjoy books that keep you reading, this is the one for you.

This gripping crime story is about two wealthy and two ambitious pairs of people in Motown, Detroit in the late 1970's. Real estate developer Frank and his cute wife Margaret ("Mickey") have been married for 15 years, but cracks are appearing. Frank is drinking too much, verbally abusive and not always where he claims to be. Mickey is a sweet, non-confrontational, faithful wife devoting much of her time to their 13-year old son Bo, a tennis talent. She is a tennis mom.
Ordell Robbie (OR) gives his old friend Louis Gara (LG) a tour of Detroit when he is released from prison to show him what is new, incl. the derelict tenements renovated with his help. OR supplied much of the building materials and appliances by arranging them to be stolen from other building sites. He has done pretty well over the years and thinks he can do still better. He knows the man he deals with in his materials racket is a straw man. The real big man is not on any billboard or letterhead, but taking monthly trips to the Bahamas to move a small fortune from his cash-paying renters beyond the grasp of the tax authorities.
OR and LG agree simple blackmail is not enough to force the tycoon to turn over a cool million to them. So they decide to kidnap his wife. And she is Mickey...
Will it work? How will she react? Will Frank pay? How will the crime duo's third accomplice, an American neo-Nazi, perform?
Elmore Leonard (EL) is a superlative writer. He combines a deep fascination with senseless violence, human stupidity and doomed individual ambition with awesome plotting skills and dialogues. His often sorry protagonists come across as completely authentic. He has rightly been called the Grand Master of American crime writing. Every one of his books (many turned into Hollywood films) is a great work of entertainment and a study of America's underclass.

This book was just okay for Elmore (which is still pretty damn good by anyone elses standards) but I found the ending paid off well - I should have seen it coming, but I didn't!