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Product Description
Review
"the wildly witty plot includes a multiplicity of low-life characters, double crosses, scams, betrayals and dead bodies. Above all, Leonard provides the fizziest and cleverest dialogue in crime fiction. A total delight." -- MARCEL BERLINS THE TIMES 21.11.09 "Like Out of Sight? You'll love this... a typically labryinthine tale featuring three of his best jive-talking ex-cons. Lets hope George Clooney reads it and wants to make another Jack Foley film." GQ - January 2010 issue "There is little sign of Leonard losing his ear for dialogue." TLS - 18.12.09 "proof, if any were needed, that being 83 years old has not diminished Elmore Leonard's talents as one of America's foremost writers... one of Leonard's most enjoyable romps to date... deserves to be read and re-read." SUNDAY EXPRESS - 10.01.10 'Leonard's crime stories are packed with players who deserve curtain calls... Leonard, now 83, still writes with high style, great energy, unflappable cool and a jubilant love of the game.' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY - 01.11.09 "a cause for celebration... a hugely entertaining read... it is a testament to Leonard's skills that he manages to make each of his characters interesting and rounded... it is Leonard's snappy dialogue that lifts his tale above other run of the mill crime capers." SUNDAY HERALD 15.11.09 "No-one writes crime novels like Hollywood favourite Elmore Leonard, and he has returned with a typical tale of colourful hoodlums on the hunt for another scam... Great dialogue, great characters: 84-year-old Leonard, releasing his 47th novel, never fails to thrill." -- 9/10 EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS 28.11.09 "there's no doubt this is vintage Leonard... great dialogue." IRISH NEWS 14.11.09 "about the varying degrees of truth and baloney in relationships. Sometimes the truth or baloney is lethal. Road Dogs is droll, exciting and underlying its material of sex, violence and money, and beyond its cast of cons and thugs and movie stars - asks interesting questions." THE SCOTSMAN - 28.22.09
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Book Description
Jack Foley and Cundo Rey are road dogs: trusted jailhouse comrades watching each other's back. They're so tight, Cundo's using his own money and his shark lady lawyer to get Foley's sentence reduced from thirty years to three months. And when Jack gets out, the wealthy Cuban criminal wants him to stay in Cundo's multimillion dollar Venice Beach house—right across from the one where Cundo's common-law wife, professional psychic Dawn Navarro, resides. There will certainly be some payback expected, though Jack can't figure out what. Sexy Dawn's intentions are a lot clearer. But Cundo's coming home earlier than anticipated, and Jack smells a double-cross cooking—the kind that could turn a road dog into road kill.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Deep Dive into Ex-Cons' Choices and Fears with Great Dialogue,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: Road Dogs (Hardcover)
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." -- Matthew 6:19I loved reading this book and stayed up until 3:30 a.m. to finish it. No one does the crime story from the criminal's perspective better than Elmore Leonard. Place one of his plots anywhere in La-La land as occurs in Road Dogs and the pleasure just increases. Road Dogs combines great character development with a wonderful psychological tension surrounded by some of the funniest sequences you can imagine. I could see in my mind the movie that will be made from this book as I read the pages. It's hard to add humor to crime stories, but Mr. Leonard's deft touch makes that look easy. Those who want lots of action will find this book to be tedious until near the denouement. If you haven't read or seen Out of Sight, Road Dogs gives you a good reprise about the earlier activities of Jack Foley, the narrator of Road Dogs, Deputy Marshal Karen Sisco, and Special Agent Lou Adams in Out of Sight who all appear in Road Dogs. Mr. Leonard gives you a little more of a thumbnail background on Cundo Rey (from LaBrava) who is Jack Foley's fellow road dog (buddy who helps protect a convict in jail or prison), but it's enough. You don't need much background to appreciate Dawn Navarro who earlier appeared in Riding the Rap. But it's best to focus on these characters as though you haven't met them before. They combine naiveté, fear, suspicion, and calculation in ways that are unknown to those who haven't made a living from criminal activities. So what's the plot? Jack Foley has just been returned to prison after escaping (through a series of very unusual events) when his buddy, Cundo Rey, offers to pay for his appeals with the remarkable attorney, Miss Megan Norris. As a result, Jack is soon released from prison and Cundo sends Jack west to meet his "wife" and to hang out in one of Cundo's multimillion dollar homes in Venice, California. Jack is concerned that he's going to be asked to do more crime to pay back Cundo. Dawn has different plans for Jack. When Cundo arrives a day early, the sparks start to fly. Who will get burned? From that point, you'll see the sharks circling one another. The first one to bleed in the water is likely to be attacked by the others. The story is nicely balanced and your fun in reading it depends on not knowing what happens next. Don't read anything that goes further than this in describing the plot. Does crime pay? I especially liked thinking about the moral implications of this story. Mr. Leonard has buried some important points about the value of innocence and treating others decently.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good But Not Great,
By
This review is from: Road Dogs (Hardcover)
For the first-timer to Elmore Leonard, this probably isn't the best novel. "Road Dogs" continues the characters of Jack Foley, Cundo Rey, and Dawn Navarro in a stab-in-the-back love triangle story. The plot begins well and Leonard's trademark is the dialogue between the characters. However, as the novel develops, the story starts to get a little stale and the ending is somewhat of a letdown. Interestingly enough, the side story of FBI stalker Lou Adams is probably the highlight of the book.Definitely expected more from Leonard, but still better than most of the drivel that is out there these days. Still recommend "Road Dogs" even for the un-initiated Leonard newbie.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (111 customer reviews) 58 of 62 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Count Me a Fan,
By Christy Tillery French "reviewer/writer" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Road Dogs (Hardcover)
Pre-release customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program
Elmore Leonard brings back three characters from previous books for an encore performance in his latest comedic foray into the criminal world. Bank robber Jack Foley (Out of Sight), and Cundo Rey (LaBrava), meet in prison and quickly become friends, referring to themselves as Road Dogs. Rey's lawyer has arranged for his early release from prison and Rey offers her services to Foley, who's in for thirty years. She manages to get Foley's prison term reduced to 30 months and Foley is released two weeks before Rey. Rey offers Foley one of his houses in Venice Beach but admonishes him to keep his hands off his girlfriend, Dawn (Riding the Rap), a psychic/ghost hunter patiently waiting for Rey's release so she can con him out of his millions. When she meets Foley, Dawn knows he is her way to the money and tries to work her magic on him. Foley is intrigued but distracted by an FBI agent tailing him, waiting to capture him after he robs his next bank.As usual, Leonard adroitly moves the story forward through realistic, at times quirky, dialogue and the inner thoughts of some pretty wacky people. He excels at delivering entertaining scenes of duplicity and complicity among characters on the wrong and right side of the law. Foley takes the lead in this comedy and is a cool guy who manages to stay one step ahead of those who have no qualms about taking him out, legally or illegally. The interplay between Foley and the others will keep the readers turning pages, laughing along the way. This is one fun read. 35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Streetwise Banter Undercut By Lazy Plotting,
By Kevin Joseph - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Road Dogs (Hardcover)
Pre-release customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program
Jack Foley and Cundo Rey, the titular "road dogs," form a bond in prison that ties their fates after release. Enter Dawn Navarro, a psychic grifter who has acted the part of Cundo's dutiful wife during his eight-year prison sentence, patiently biding her time for the opportunity to steal his sizable fortune from him. When Foley is released from prison before Cundo, and becomes Dawn's lover and would-be accomplice, the stage is set for a triangular struggle that pits the road dogs' buddy-bond against their feelings for Dawn and against Dawn's own ambitions. A subplot involving Lou Adams, an FBI agent who is stalking Foley in the hope of catching him in a bank robbery so that he can find a compelling ending to a book he's writing about America's most accomplished bank robber, adds another entertaining dimension.As is typical of an Elmore Leonard work, its main strength lies in the hip, streetwise banter between this trio of hustlers and in the conflict between their loyalties to one another and their rising distrust. The plot, unfortunately, suffers from one major flaw, which becomes harder and harder to overlook as the story unfolds: why does Dawn have to wait until Cundo is released from prison before conspiring with Cundo's money man Little Jimmy to embezzle Cundo's millions? The ending is also something of a letdown. If you can suspend disbelief enough to overcome the lazy plotting and let yourself be immersed in the cool, hustler banter, there's enough here to keep the pages flipping. 29 of 32 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
More like Roadkill,
By B. Sanger - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Road Dogs (Hardcover)
Nobody writes crime better than Leonard -- and very few wrote westerns better than Leonard. However, of all the novels he's given us, "Road Dogs" is at the bottom of the heap.When I first heard Foley and Cundo were coming back I was ecstatic and didn't think for a second he could miss with that team. But miss and miss badly he has. As somebody mentioned above, nothing happens for 200-plus pages. Nothing. And quite frankly, this is some of the lamest "banter" ever in a Leonard novel. Plus, Dawn's plan was not only stupid and hideously planned, it wasn't even gripping. And the FBI guy tailing Foley leads to nothing. A dog of a novel and giant disappointment for this Leonard fan. |
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