Stick (Mass Market Paperback)

by Elmore Leonard (Author) "STICK SAID HE WASN'T GOING if they had to pick up anything..." (more)
Key Phrases: yachting cap, Mary Lou, New York, Bal Harbour (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

After serving time for armed robbery, Ernest "Stick" Stickley is back on the outside and trying to stay legit. But it's tough staying straight in a crooked town -- and Miami is a pirate's paradise, where investment fat cats and lowlife drug dealers hold hands and dance. And when a crazed player chooses Stick at random to die for another man's sins, the struggling ex-con is left with no choice but to dive right back into the game. Besides, Stick knows a good thing when he sees it -- and a golden opportunity to run a very profitable sweet revenge scam seems much too tasty to pass up.

About the Author
Elmore Leonard has written more than three dozen books including Cuba Libre, Rum Punch, and Get Shorty, and numerous screenplays. He has an unparalleled reputation among lovers of mayhem, suspense, and just plain wonderful writing. A Grand Master Award winner of the Mystery Writers of America, he has been likened to everyone from Balzac to Dostoevsky to Dickens to Dashiell Hammett -- but he is, in fact, entirely and entertainingly sui generis.

He lives in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (July 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060085630
• ISBN-13: 978-0060085636
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #131,551 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Late in getting to the big score, but still great reading, July 31, 2002

By	Len Czyzniejewski (Las Vegas, Nv United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Usually in a Elmore Leonard book, we get to know what the caper is going to be rather early in the book. In "Stick", it doesn't come until very late in the book, and is so unimportant to the overall story it's almost a throw-in. But that doesn't matter, as just following the adventures of the title character is worth reading on it's own.

"Stick" tells the part of the life of it's main character, Earnest Stickley, right after being released from prison. Yes, he does witness a murder, and yes, people are after him for it, and yes, he does eventually get involved in a big score at the end, and yes, even this has a surprise twist. But it's what happens in between all this that I like.

You would think that seven years of hard time would make anyone sick of a life of crime. You would think he would avoid anything that would send him back to a life that he admits is a constant struggle for survival. But, as in his other books, a con is a con is a con. It's amusing that Stick doesn't even seem to conceive of the idea of a completely straight life, even though that's what he's declaring.

Sure, he gets a job as a chauffer, but it's just something to hold him as he scopes out other jobs. He claims to be coming to Florida to see his daughter, but it's quite a while into the story before he actually gets around to going to see her. Checking out the local crime scene is just a higher priority, yet you don't dislike the guy.

While this life is not for me, it does provide great escapism into a world where I can be part of it, but not have to pay the price.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leonard at his best, January 5, 2001

By	John Kaderich (Short Hills, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stick (Leonard, Elmore, Elmore Leonard Library.) (Paperback)

This is a hard, fast-paced, joyride of a book. Leonard doesn't write many bad books, but occasionally he seems to run out of ideas. Not this time, though. If you're looking for the perfect busride/planeride/trainride reading, something to keep you absorbed for hours, pick this baby up.

JK

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adolescent Leonard blooming into maturity., September 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Stick (Paperback)

After having read Elmore Leonard steadily since I discovered his name in a currently out-of-print collection of pulp stories, I've been a diehard fan. Stick is a chance for the Leonard fan aquainted with his later works-turned-movies (Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Maximum Bob) to watch the genisus of pure genius. The book has several twists that show up, in form, in some of Leonard's later novels, and Ernest Stickley, Jr. seems more like a blue collar worker than an ex-con trying to make a go at it. None of this subtracts from the novel's genuine story; the bad guys are anything but simple and two-dimensional, and the overall undercurrent throughout the book is one of anticipation. Much as I hate to say it, Tarantino has nothing on this kind of stuff.