Mr. Majestyk (Mass Market Paperback)

All of that however, is an aside. Mr. Majestyk tells the story of a man that has escaped the world of Vietnam and attempts to raise a melon crop. He hires migrant workers to bring his crop in, including the love interest of the story, Nancy. And as others have put it, the job must get done.

However, where there is a job, organized is usually not far behind in Leonard's novels. Even in the American Southwest. For Mr. Majestyk, it starts with a two bit hood named Bobby Kopas that tries to muscle in his own crew to pick the product in Majestyk's fields. With a punch and a shot gun, Majestyk drives them off and starts the whole ball rolling.

After getting arrested for assaulting Kopas, Majestyk gets involved with a prison break with a Mafia Hitman named Frank Renda. The rest of the novel centers around Renda's planned revenge against Majestyk.

I just found out this morning, after having completed the novel, that Mr. Majestyk was also a movie in 1974. I'm not certain which came first - the novel or the movie. However, Leonard wrote them both. The movie stars Charles Bronson, who I can see playing Mr. Majestyk, but I think someone like Clint Eastwood, or a larger actor would have matched my image from the novel better.

Again, I digress. I guess I'm not surprised this book is also a movie. Unlike Leonard's more recent novels, Mr. Majestyk is much more action oriented than dialogue driven. That is kind of disappointing because Leonard's dialogue is the best. However, his action in this novel is some of the crispest he has written. I kept thinking to myself that I was surprised this hadn't already been turned into a movie as so many of Leonard's other novels had been - the surprise was on me I guess.

This novel is also reminiscent of an old western. The hero (Majestyk) is pursued by the villain (Renda). The law fails, so the hero must take matters into his own hand, and ultimately, there will be a big showdown at high noon. Okay, so they don't meet in the middle of town with a pair of six shooters, but its close.

I'd recommend this novel to anyone that enjoys Leonard and is looking for something a little different from him. A lot of the internal dialogue for the characters is missing in this one, but it is a quick read that tells a good story for some unlikely heros.

"Mr. Majestyk" isn't part of that legacy. It's a sturdy, muscle-minded, no-frills crime story that 100 other guys could have churned out in the 1970s, and many did. The idea of a peaceable loner coming up against dark criminal forces, only to be revealed as more formidable than any of his adversaries banked on, was old then and older now. Characterization is limited. The atmosphere is arid as a sun-baked arroyo. Most surprisingly for Leonard, the dialogue is long on brawn and short on brains. "Shut up, %**$^@#" is about the best the normally loquacious Leonard seems able, or interested, in presenting.

A good review elsewhere on this page notes the book was actually written after the movie, which became a Charles Bronson vehicle after Clint Eastwood dropped out. You can kind of smell that star positioning behind the unpromising premise of a melon farmer who runs into trouble while hiring migrant workers in the American Southwest. Dirty Harry wanted to show he wasn't all about gunning down minorities, and apparently Chuck Bronson felt the same (though this movie came out just before "Death Wish" did during the same year, 1974).

The novel doesn't shed much light in the migrant worker situation, or try to. Nor does it offer much insight into the Vietnam vet, Majestyk's previous line of work. It spends its short span setting up Majestyk's unenviable situation. Getting busted by the cops for defending his work site against a small-time hoodlum, he winds up crossing a much nastier and more powerful criminal during an escape attempt. Can he dispense with this threat and get his melons to market so he doesn't lose his farm?

Though these sort of novels typically shortchange the police to provide the non-cop hero with more of a lone-wolf situation, "Mr. Majestyk" overamps this by making the fuzz Barney-Fife-caliber hopeless. For example, their case against chief villain Frank Renda goes up in smoke when a cop who collared Renda is gunned down during the escape fight. Didn't the officer write a report, or was he just going to testify at the trial from memory? Instead, the police seem to throw up their hands and rely on using Mr. Majestyk for bait (and then fail to keep adequate track of him.)

Lucky for law and order, the bad guys in this one are even dumber. Frank Renda, we are told, is a hard guy "cool, patient, like someone who moved slowly, without wasted effort." Well, that is until Renda gets it in his head to waste Majestyk. Then there's a lot of wasted effort. Renda just won't quit, even as it becomes obvious that his obsession for killing the melon farmer who gave him some static is going to cost him another trip to the big house, perhaps the good graces of his mob overlords, and a good half-dozen of his best foot soldiers. Renda's no psycho killer; he's actually diversified. We are told his other affairs include a restaurant linen service and a string of massage parlors. But a few minutes with Majestyk turns him into a kamikaze. For a cold-blooded trigger man, Renda runs a bit too hot to be believed.

Majestyk doesn't emote much, which makes him a perfect Charles Bronson hero. Actually, Bronson apparently gave the character more charm in the movie version (I haven't seen it), which makes you wonder whether Leonard underwrote the character deliberately after losing Eastwood's services to construct his protagonist around and being at a loss as to what to replace him with. There's an attempt at presenting a romance, but why bother when we don't know much about what draws Majestyk and his migrant worker friend together except he likes the way she looks in a pair of jeans and she likes the fact he's a fair labor contractor. [Cue violins.]

The final Wild West-style showdown borrows from many better stories, and wraps itself up too neatly in less than ten pages. Leonard obviously didn't waste more than a month punching this out, getting it in place as a film tie-in that would support him while he toiled over more ambitious fare. It's a decent story for a bus trip, but "Majestyk" in name only. Nearly any other Leonard is a better bet.