Review by Booklist Review
Leonard remains the only A-list crime fiction writer who doesn't rely on a series hero. Not that his people don't have plenty in common: expert at thinking on their feet, not above bending the law, hard-boiled with a touch of romance, and always possessing a quirky interest in the minutiae of daily life. Where they differ is in what they do: bail bondsmen, bookies, fallen priests, and now, a high diver surrounded by a gaggle of Civil War reenactors. Dennis Lenahan, the high diver, travels from gig to gig with an 80-foot ladder and a 22-foot-wide tank, which, he tells female fans, looks like a 50-cent piece from the top of the ladder. His latest gig is at the Tishomingo Lodge and Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. Everything is going swimmingly until Dennis witnesses a murder 80 feet underneath him. Silence seems the best policy, but it turns out quite a few people saw Dennis up on his ladder, including a smooth-talking black man from Detroit called Robert, who finagles Dennis into participating in an upcoming reenactment of the Battle of Brice's Cross Roads. That's only the tip of the iceberg, of course, but the elaborate action is really only an excuse to let another group of wonderfully eccentric people bang into each other. What's most impressive this timethe fast-talking characters--is Leonard's ability to get inside a world, respecting the details yet always sensitive to the comic possibilities. There are other crime novels involving Civil War reenactors (Peter Abrahams' Last of the Dixie Heroes [BKL My 15 01], for example), but no one but Leonard would think of throwing a casino and a high diver into the mix. Pure entertainment. --Bill Ott
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
On the advance reading copy of this novel sent to PW, the title appears in blue letters half an inch high. Leonard's name floats above the title in red letters a full inch high. A Leonard novel is an event, and for good reason. Over the past 40 years, this writer has evolved into the undisputed champ of the American crime novel, and he hasn't lost a step. His new (and 37th) novel is one of his smoothest, a return to the South of Out of Sight (1996) and numerous earlier Leonards though this is the author's first foray into deep country Mississippi, birthplace of the blues. Men and women who scrape at the margins of the American dream are Leonard's forte, and here he presents several such folk, all memorable, beginning with his hero, Dennis Lenahan, a high diver who contracts for a gig to perform at the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino. While setting up his rig, Dennis witnesses a murder by local members of the Dixie Mafia. So, perhaps, does a mysterious, very slick black guy, Robert Johnson, down from the North in his Jag to run a con on a local powerbroker or so it seems. But Robert, who befriends Dennis, and the Detroit mobster and moll who join him at the Lodge & Casino, have other, more complicated, more ambitious plans, for Tishomingo, for the Dixie Mafia and for Dennis, plans that come to a head during the Civil War battle re-enactment that provides the unusual and fascinating backdrop for the book's second half. As usual, Leonard's characters walk onto the page as real as sunlight and shadow; the dialogue is dead-on, the loopy story line strewn with the unexpected, including sudden flourishes of romance and death. Prime Leonard, prime reading. (Feb. 1) Forecast: Backed by a $250,000 marketing campaign and Leonard's ever-soaring rep, this title, his first with Morrow, could be his biggest seller yet, buoyed by a seven-city author tour and simultaneous HarperAudio (abridged and unabridged cassette) and HarperLargePrint editions. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Exhibition high diver Dennis Lenahan arrives in Tunica, MS, the "Casino Capital of the South," hoping to work a few weeks away from the noise and crowds of the amusement-park circuit. While he is checking his rigging the first night, he witnesses a murder and he believes that the killers have seen him. The same night, Dennis meets Robert Taylor, and enigmatic, streetwise African American from Detroit who talks of mysterious "business opportunities" in Tunica. Dennis is attracted by Robert's easy charm and lets Robert convince him to participate in a Civil War battle reenactment. The Rebels include the murderers and their drug-dealing cronies, the Yanks include some business associates of Robert who intend to muscle in on the local drug trade, and both sides may be carrying real ammunition. In Leonard's 37th novel, the characters pop off the page, the dialog sizzles, and the plot keeps the reader guessing until the very end. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/01.] Karen Anderson, Quarles & Brady/Streich Lang, Phoenix, AZ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Leonard's 37th backs smooth and easy into Tunica, Mississippi, site of the shaggiest crime tale he's spun since Maximum Bob (1991). Normally, the critical moment in Dennis Lenahan's high dives is the instant his body hits the water. But the final day he's been setting up his rig at Billy Darwin's Tishomingo Lodge & Casino, that moment comes as he hears the two guys he's been watching below execute Floyd Showers, the ex-con who'd been helping him rig the ladders and the perch above. The killers-extortionist Arlen Novis and Junior Owens, who runs Arlen's honky-tonk-look up 80 feet and see him as clearly as he sees them, and although Charlie Hoke, the alleged half-Chickasaw ex-ballplayer who serves as the casino's celebrity host, assures them of Dennis's discretion, there's no doubt that his position in Tunica has been compromised before he's even made his first dive. Dennis needs a friend-somebody like Robert Taylor, the soft-spoken black man whose illustrated patter about how his grandfather was lynched by the great-grandfather of moneyed mobile home salesman Walter Kirkbride is so well-oiled that it's obviously a front for some con Dennis can't identify. What he doesn't need is the attention he catches from dangerous women like newscaster Diane Corrigan-Cochrane, who asks him if it's true that he witnessed Floyd's murder, and Loretta Novis, Arlen's willing wife. And he certainly doesn't need any part of the Civil War reenactment of the battle of Brice's Cross Roads that will sweep him up together with state investigator John Rau and the Dixie Mafiosi he's trying to put away, as Leonard (Pagan Babies, 2000, etc.) revels in layers upon layers of playacting and posturing. Laid-back lowlifes struggle for power, survival, and their 15 minutes of fame in a plot as busy and chaotic as the original battle of Brice's Cross Roads. $250,000 ad/promo; author tour
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
