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Forum Reviews of Road Dogs
Posted: 12 May 2009 08:52 AM   [ Ignore ]
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Post your impressions of Road Dogs here.

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Posted: 12 May 2009 10:54 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]
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It’s hot, I’ll say that. #40 with a bullet now at Amazon.

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Posted: 12 May 2009 06:03 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]
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I really liked Elmore’s approach with ROAD DOGS, taking the first half of the book to introduce the characters, getting them in position, then allow the story to kick in
gear.  Without giving anything away, I thought Elmore’s ending left open the possibility of Foley and Chili Palmer to cross paths.  I would be interested to hear from
other contributors to the forum to see if that occurred to them.  ROAD DOGS should please all of EL"s fans and make readers new to his work seek out the eariler titles
that Jack, Dawn, and Cundo appeared in.  ...Jack and Chili in the same story? Hmmm.

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Posted: 13 May 2009 10:50 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]
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Just listened to the Imus interview. Great stuff. Best part was at end when Imus says “It was nice to meet you” and Elmore tells Imus he had been on his show once before.

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Posted: 13 May 2009 01:57 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 4 ]
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A couple photos of Elmore from last night, NYC.

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Posted: 15 May 2009 11:24 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 5 ]
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I loved it. I only wish it was a bit longer. Elmore’s books are among the fastest reads on the planet to begin with, but at 262 pages, it seemed to fall somewhere in between a novella and a novel.

Zorro and Jimmy were fantasic additions to EL’s always growing list of supporting players. I loved that Harry Arno got a mention because, as I’ve posted many times before, he’s an all-time favorite character of mine. Too bad Harry wasn’t around to tip-off Cundo to Dawn’s evil ways. Speaking of Dawn, do NOT read below this line unless you’ve read the book.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW!!!!

This was truly an evil character, without a single redeeming quality. From the end of RIDING THE RAP, when Rylan let her off the hook, I knew she was no good. The type of person used to “getting away with it” all her life. I would have liked to have seen her get popped, but sometimes the open ending is more effective. You just know she’ll never be happy without that money; a fugitive, looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

Yeah, I could see Foley crossing paths with Chili, being that he seems to be in California to stay. Shit, if someone gave me a 4 and a half million dollar house, I wouldn’t be going anywhere either. But we’ll have to wait and see. Karen coming back to put Dawn down sounds nice, too. But I’ll leave the writing and plots up to the master, EL, who I again bow down to. You’re the greatest, Mr. Leonard. Thank you for the reading highlight of my year.

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Posted: 19 May 2009 11:11 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 6 ]
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I’ve been buying every hardcover on release day since “Stick” and I have to say, Dutch, you haven’t lost a step.  Bravo!

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Posted: 24 May 2009 08:46 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 7 ]
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I too wish it were a bit longer, but in a ‘I wish Dylan’s Nashville Skyline was longer’ kind of way (which is a compliment).

I thought it was a brilliant novel. I cherished every word of it. I had to restrain myself from finishing it in a day or two; wanted to let everything sink in. I just finished it this afternoon, and I’m still sort of trying to wrap my head around the ending. Great ending for Jack if that’s the last we see of him.

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Posted: 28 May 2009 11:20 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 8 ]
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The St. Louis Post Dispatch said in its book blog that it had decided not to do a full review of the book and had one of its reviewers write a short paragraph. A reader, “jjk” posted this speculating on what it would be like if Elmore wrote his own review:

What if Elmore Leonard wrote his own review?

Readers look at the new book and figure, “looks a little thin, Elmore must be gettin’ old”, Leonard thinking, “yeah, I’m so old that it don’t take me as many pages to tell a story the right way, or to cash the big check, anyway, you think you can do it better you see a stop sign on your typewriter?” Readers wondering about the title, “Road Dogs” thinking maybe he meant Road Kill, or something, Leonard being like that. Leonard knowing all along the readers probably never been closer than ten miles from a Penitentiary in their middle class lives and wouldn’t know prison slang like Road Dog which means homies who got each other’s backs in the joint. Knowing they will be looking for it in the book, wondering when it will pop up, Leonard knowing, but not telling on the dust cover, thinking “let ‘em buy the damn thing. Sure I’m rich, but you can always use more. Readers thinking “great, another book with recycled characters,” Leonard knowing they’re hoping for Chili Palmer, on account of that “Get Shorty” thing, but knowing they will love Jack Foley even better, what with him being played by that Clooney, not Travolta who’s getting a little wide in the butt for a star anyway. Other former characters popping up, even Karen Sisco, Leonard saying he knows the TV show was a bomb, but still likes Karen and knows his readers like her, too. Readers seeing Foley, thinking there’s going to be a bank robbery, Foley holding the record for the most banks robbed and all, but Leonard thinking, “bet you weren’t expecting a fortune teller in a book about a bank robber,” Leonard knowing its not the intricate plot that brings them back, it is dialogue between characters so slimy anyone of them could run for Alderman in St. Louis, even in his hometown of Detroit. Leonard thinking, “the hell you think you’re dealing with here some snot-nose like John Grisham?” Readers knowing Leonard is the coolest author breathing oxygen in Detroit, probably the whole country when you think about it. When you’re that cool, everyone’s your Road Dog.

— jjk

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Posted: 29 May 2009 08:12 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 9 ]
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This is just terrific. A review by a guy who hasn’t read the book. He gets that Elmore is the best, at least. But if you want a few laughs, check this one out.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/may/29/1c29elmore182346-leonards-road-dogs-has-real-bite/?features&zIndex=107211

(How can someone get so many facts wrong in such a short review and still get published? Shocking).

Here today’s competition: list the errors in the review.

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Posted: 29 May 2009 01:24 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 10 ]
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Thanks Crim. Just read the article. Atrocious. 40 books in under 40 years? By my count, Dutch’s first book was in ‘54. I’m no math major, but by my count that is 55 years. Also, prison in SoCal in “Dogs” also incorrect.

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Posted: 29 May 2009 05:55 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 11 ]
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I believe the reader was making fun of the paper for being too lazy to write a review and tried to write in Elmore Leonard style.

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Posted: 29 May 2009 08:11 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 12 ]
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It is a great book. 

Los Angeles Times Bestsellers for May 31, 2009
#9 Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard (William Morrow: $26.99)
An ex-bank robber is seduced by his former jail mate’s girlfriend and his fortune.

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Posted: 07 June 2009 05:13 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 13 ]
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#8 Los Angeles Times!!!!

Up one.

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Posted: 12 July 2009 09:28 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 14 ]
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First page, top row, Amazon Kindle. Excellent.

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Books/b/ref=sa_menu_kbo3?ie=UTF8&node=1286228011&pf_rd_p=328655101&pf_rd_s=left-nav-1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=507846&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1KNK86J9PXY5TMHJ1SRQ

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Posted: 03 August 2009 10:07 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 15 ]
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Spoilers within:
“Road dogs” tells it. This is a buddy story, with a heart, even a morality play, and a strategy session, a chess match.
And on the side, Elmore has a lot of fun introducing interesting characters and filling them up with quirks. And poking us with fun. He even uses George Clooney’s name in this, and, of course, after “Out of Sight,” I’m picturing Clooney with every word Jack Foley utters, so I laugh.
And the dumb-ass skinhead body guard, whom Jack schools on the basketball court in no rules basketball, to the tune of a broken collarbone and broken arm, Mike Nesi, who then threatens Jack, shows up at the funeral home with Tico laid out and demands money from Jack. Then I laugh out loud when Elmore simply says: “Foley and Zorro threw him out the front door of the funeral home.” The confessional passage with Jimmy trying to ensure his eternal happiness in case Cundo kills him tonight is precious—he missed Mass on 1,400 Sundays for a start.
I never did think Elmore was telling us in his crime sagas that bad guys are what we all should be, glorifying them. He was just telling us these are interesting characters—hey, it is what it is—the seven deadly sins often can rule the day when people let them, lawmen with spine can turn the tide, and a smart, funny, pretty, cool broad is as good as it gets.
But this one ... this one—maybe as Elmore ages he sees more, call it wisdom—has the societal defective, smart as he is, bank robbing genius (though he was doing 30 years there for a while if that is so smart), in the person of Jack Foley, play by rules he isn’t even sure about when a road dog of his, more of a buddy than he thought, in the dubious recently released ex-con Cundo Rey, is put in the cross hairs of Dawn Navarro, Cundo’s common law wife and a psychic—the suggestion, which may be the source of some of her excessive pride, is that she really does have some super psychic powers, and isn’t just a con woman to the deluded. She also hates male bonding, road doggery, and how guys like that make her and other women feel small.
Dawn makes us ask: What is evil? If evil is the absense of good, then Dawn is full of it. She, to much more a degree than most of us, has that concupiscence, those seven deadly sin urges, and for some reason, lets them have their way. She drinks, she screws almost the whole cast, she is a thief, a deceiver and cheater, a liar, a manipulator, and, oh yes, a murderer. She’s got her eyes on the prize, millions in Cundo’s California business-real estate empire. And she will do anything ... yep anything, to get there.
Jack seems in on it with Dawn at first then figures out he doesn’t need the dough if it means killing Cundo, or being killed. See, Jack, the chess thinker, is usually a step or two ahead of Dawn and Cundo and Danialle Karmanos, the actress who needs a psychic, and Tico the gangbanger factotum and Jimmy, Cundo’s bookkeeper and gay overseer of Dawn while Cundo was up the river. And we watch it all play out, with Dawn serving some of them macaroni and cheese with a side of three slugs in the chest for one and complicity for the others. Meanwhile the FBI guy Lou Adams watching Jack with help from teenage gangbangers has his own angle—a book to make Jack bigger than bank robbers Willie Sutton and Dillinger. Lou isn’t exactly focused on any of this real crime happening.
Since Jack and Cundo had become road dogs, guys who watch each other’s back, while inside at Glades Correctional in Florida, and Cundo lined up lawyer Megan Norris to get Jack’s 30-year bit busted down to—get this—30 months including time served, Jack didn’t say to himself the Bible says the fifth commandment says thou shalt not kill, and decide to back off taking out his friend. But things bothered him about the plan with Dawn to fleece Cundo, and he just couldn’t get with it. And we knew Jack wasn’t a killer already—127 or so bank robberies without a gun. But Jack had to have loved all this action, or he would have bolted for Costa Rica, as he had planned—besides he needed a stake first after just leaving Glades. He did figure things out better than the rest of them, and at the end he was left thinking of ... what else, a woman. Maybe ex-wife Adele, maybe federal marshal Karen Sisco, maybe actress Danialle Karmanos. Megan Norris. Whoever, whenever. Even Dawn ...?
And if this is a morality play, the moral is not: going to bat for your road dog friend is good, and virtue is its own reward. The moral is you might luck into owning a $4.5 million house on a canal in Venice Beach, Calif. But then, maybe Jack had strategized that all along. Either way, it worked out, right, Jack? This dog had his day.
That Elmore Leonard guy knows how to tell a story, no?
Now for the hard part: Who plays whom in the movie?
Gotta stay with Clooney for Jack; Bob Hoskins would be perfect for Cundo but alas is too old, so I go with Benicio Del Toro, who can play anything, even if he may be a bit taller than Cundo in the book; Dawn Navarro, Charlize Theron; Jimmy the Monk, Sean Penn; Tico, Diego Luna; Lou, James Gandolfini; Danialle, Amanda Peet; Zorro, John Turturro; Mike Nesi, Neal McDonough; Adele, Scarlett Johansson; Megan Norris, Natasha Henstridge; Karen Sisco, Jessica Biel, though Jennifer Lopez wasn’t bad.

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