Review by Booklist Review
Leonard's bibliography in the front of this book may stretch two columns, but the quality of these short stories and novellas proves he's no forest-pulping fiction factory. Seven have been previously published, and two are new offerings. In the cleverly layered title story, a Colombian maid is hired by an unhappy plastic surgeon's wife for her presumed underworld connections; in the longer "Tenkiller," a stuntman who believes the women in his life are cursed to early graves comes home to Oklahoma to run squatters off his land--and perhaps reunite with his high-school sweetheart. With one exception ("Hanging Out at the Buena Vista," which feels like an afterthought), the stories are all firecrackers. Making an especially welcome return is "Chickasaw Charlie Hoke," about a washed-up career farm-league baseball player who has to strike out a casino boss to win a job as a "celebrity host." Leonard fans will recognize this story's setting (Tunica, Mississippi) from Tishomingo Blues [BKL D 1 01] and feisty Federal Marshal Karen Sisco in "Karen Makes Out" from Out of Sight (1996). Although certain recurring scenarios and themes are evident--friends or lovers on opposite sides of the law, and people who take the law into their own hands--Leonard explores these through highly original premises and fresh, three-dimensional characters. Especially noteworthy are the women in these tales, uniformly strong, funny, and complex. But perhaps Leonard's greatest accomplishment is in transforming a notoriously underread form--the short story--into something with mass appeal. --Keir Graff
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Elmore Leonard's latest, When the Women Come Out to Dance, is a collection of short sketches that feature strong female characters in trouble. "Sparks" describes a flirtation between an insurance investigator and a widow who has apparently burned down her own mansion in the Hollywood hills. The riveting title piece involves a rich Pakistani surgeon's wife, a former stripper who's terrified that her playboy husband will have her killed once he gets bored with her. Hoping to knock him off first, she hires as a maid a Colombian woman rumored to have murdered her own abusive husband. "Fire in the Hole" finds two former co-workers pitted against one another in a deadly showdown: Boyd Crowder is a Bible-quoting neo-Nazi with a penchant for terrorist acts, and Raylan Givens is the U.S. marshal sent to shut him down. Leonard fans may wish for something meatier, but the razor-edged dialogue and brisk storytelling won't disappoint. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Never mind the official pub date; there's a one-day laydown on November 19. (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
Rummaging through Leonard's attic via these nine stories revives some fond memories and turns up a couple of forgotten treasures. Though half the volume is devoted to two novellas, the shorter pieces are the best, their characters racing against time-literally so in "Hanging Out at the Buena Vista," a tour de force that demonstrates why mating rituals among the elderly are so abbreviated-to dive into the sparring matches they live for. The title story, which pairs a woman who wishes her husband would die with another whose husband already has, offers a model of Leonard's slanting dialogue, with every sentence charged with overtones that send their relationship hurtling toward a final twist. "The Tonto Woman" recounts a rustler's determined courtship of a landowner's untouchable wife, and the equally erotically charged "Sparks" pits an insurance investigator against the only dweller in the Arroyo Verde to lose her house to a recent fire. Readers who want to see the prototype for Karen Sisco's Out of Sight (1996) or savor a quasi-postlude to the Spanish-American War yarn Cuba Libre (1998) or find out how Chickasaw Charlie Hoke got his job as Billy Darwin's celebrity host in Tishomingo Blues (2002) will all be satisfied. And the two longer entries-"Fire in the Hole," which follows former buddies respectively into the white supremacist movement and the US Marshals Service, and "Tenkiller," a second-chance romance for a rodeo rider turned Hollywood stunt man who's picked up considerable baggage along the way-are as generously plotted as most novels, even if they do sometimes get tangled in their spurs. Fresh evidence why it's a mistake to pigeonhole Leonard as a writer of westerns or crime novels. Like his mentor, John D. McDonald, the man's interested in everybody who relishes a good fight, whether it's with sharp-tongued words or shotguns.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
