A review by readingpanda
Raylan by Elmore Leonard

2.0

I am a huge fan of the TV show Justified, and I've never before read any of Elmore Leonard's stories involving Raylan Givens. So I knew it would be a little difficult to avoid picturing the actors from the show as I listened to this. As it turns out, some of the plot points are the same as things that happen in the show, although there are very different outcomes in the book.

Elmore Leonard is justly famous for his handling of dialogue and his colorful characters. The characters came through pretty well here, although for me, the dialogue suffered in the audio version. Typical of Leonard, there were criss-crossing plots and people all shades of moral grey. Not nearly as much fun as Out of Sight or probably any of a number of other Leonard books. I think I'll probably go back to Raylan's beginnings and see if those are better, before the cross-pollination of the TV show happened. (This was actually written after the show started, so it puts this one in a sort of strange Inception-esque limbo of book-inspired-by-tv-show-inspired-by-book.)