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A review by crispymerola
Fire in the Hole by Elmore Leonard
2.0
Leonard writes to bring his twelve year old wet dreams to life: cowboys and indians, guns and ammo and drinks, charming male leads bagging femme fatales. Most of his stories are dialogue heavy - two distrusting people with checkered pasts enter a room, feel one another out. They kill, or fuck, or fuck and kill each other. Then the story ends. The collection is filled with archetypical (read: boring) characters who've populated every crime/western story you've ever seen or read.
As far as schlock goes, Leonard is pretty confident and not afraid to have fun. There are some good lines and engaging moments to be found within the stories. You'll have to get past the lazy exposition and distracting fragmentary sentences, though. Leonard goes limp when it comes to prose, but his dialogue reads well. If you like reading screenplays, you'll probably dig his stories.
As far as schlock goes, Leonard is pretty confident and not afraid to have fun. There are some good lines and engaging moments to be found within the stories. You'll have to get past the lazy exposition and distracting fragmentary sentences, though. Leonard goes limp when it comes to prose, but his dialogue reads well. If you like reading screenplays, you'll probably dig his stories.