Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501260025
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: F-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Elmore Leonard. Dell. $5.99 (paper).
In Elmore Leonard's latest novel, "Pronto," Harry Arno, a South Florida sports bookie, has been skimming money from his mob split for years. When the FBI. inadvertently blows the whistle on him, he skips to the Italian countryside, pursued by the Zip, a Dade County wiseguy's Sicilian henchman, who is in turn pursued by Raylan Givens, an affable, cool-headed U.S. marshal.
The bare bones of the story is vintage Leonard, and after the first half-dozen chapters I was primed for another one of his literary roller coaster rides. Unfortunately, aside from Leonard's perfect-pitch dialogue and a couple of cleverly staged confrontations, "Pronto" feels half-baked and phoned-in. The middle third wanders all over the place; a couple of the characters' personalities seem to shift gears radically for inexplicable reasons; and a few of the side plots end up glaringly incomplete, as though Leonard meant to get back to them later in the book and they just slipped his mind.
As a big fan of his work, I could probably find something to enjoy about an Elmore Leonard book even if it was 200,000 words concerning permafrost, but it's disappointing to find the author not at the top of his game. Elmore Leonard is arguably the best living writer of crime fiction, but if you haven't read him you wouldn't be aware of that fact based on "Pronto." The true proof of his expertise with the genre lies not in this new novel, but in his earlier books, like "Get Shorty," "City Primeval," or my personal favorite, the (as usual) lamely titled, "Swag."
- NEIL HARVEY
Contessa: A Novel of Italy.
By Richard Oliver Collin. St. Martin's. $25.95.
a;sldkfjgh, and other letters to that effect.
This is the story, in part, of an Italian peasant girl who was made to learn to type on the first typewriter she ever saw. And with that sizzling beginning, we are off on a novel of love and lust, of intrigue and politics, as modern Italy emerges in the first decade of the 20th century, only to be battered anew by World War I.
Rosaria and Achille are the peasant heroine and patrician hero. (He's the one who makes her learn to type, among other things.) Richard Oliver Collin, a professor at Coastal Carolina, has done a credible job in this period novel. Romance, adventure and history. What more could a reader ask?
- ROBERT HILLDRUP
McNally's Secret.
By Lawrence Sanders. Berkley. $6.50. (paper).
McNally's Caper.
By Lawrence Sanders. Berkley. $6.50. (paper).
Frivolous mysteries are often described as "literary popcorn," and that's certainly the case with Lawrence Sanders' Archie McNally novels. But they're literary popcorn with lots of butter and salt - tasty, addictive and probably bad for you but who cares? Sanders writes with a veteran's light touch, never making more of his stories than they are.
Archie, our first-person narrator, is a semiamateur investigator who works for his father's stodgy Palm Beach law firm. He flits about the mansions and watering holes of the ultra-wealthy Floridians in his red Miata. When he's not indulging his gastronomical urges, he's engaged in sexual dalliances which he describes with tasteful discretion. Of course, there are the occasional murders, thefts, blackmails and such to be solved by our debonair hero and his pal, Sgt. Al Rogoff of the Palm Beach P.D..
In "McNally's Secret," Archie finds himself involved in a problematical romantic relationship of his own while he's trying to retrieve some stolen stamps owned by Lady Cynthia Horowitz, an aging beauty with a scandalous reputation. Lady Cynthia plays a supporting role in Sanders' newest, "McNally's Caper." In this one, he becomes caught up in the middle of the Forsythe family problems. These Forsythes are a screwy bunch who seem to be stealing valuables from each other, and have innumerable secrets.
The key to both novels is the breezy tone that Sanders and Archie maintain throughout. Those in the mood for this kind of diversion will be thoroughly entertained. Those who aren't won't get past the first page.
- MIKE MAYO, Book page editor
Neil Harvey lives in Blacksburg.
Robert Hilldrup is a Richmond writer and former newspaperman.
by CNB