Review -- Road Dogs

Road Dogs
Elmore Leonard

It's probably unfair to compare apples to oranges.  Or in this case, apples to George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Soderbergh (and Ving Rhames! and Don Cheadle! and Steve Zahn!  and Albert Brooks!   and... and... ).  Ok, unfair fight.  This isn't a review of one of my favorite movies.

I must have known when I placed Road Dogs on my reading list that it was the next Foley book after Out of Sight.  By the time I got the book, I had forgotten this fact.  But this was the first Elmore Leonard book I read.  This won't be the last one I read, but I gotta say, I was a little disappointed.   

I read a review later that describes Foley as both a slick guy who knows how to get along with everyone, but at the same time, very clueless.  This comes through, and Foley does well in the end, but the story here wasn't nearly as strong as the Out of Sight or Get Short stories (another film I really enjoyed).  This book kind of plods along with a number of characters I really didn't care for or about.  One thing that I liked about this book was the dialogue - there's a lot of back and forth, a lot of interplay.  However, it's hard to read an accent than it is to hear it.  But I still appreciated the variety of the characters.

So, yeah, don't recommend this book, but I'll definitely check out more Elmore Leonard.  (I'm a little scared posting this, I know Leonard is a well-revered author and I really suspect my appreciation may have been diluted by the book choice and the cinema.)