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Frank Matisse had specialized in stealing from hotel rooms but was trying hard to go straight. He meets Dick Nichols in New Orleans and discovers that he was raising money for the Contras, although his daughter, Lucy, doesn't want the money to arrive in Nicaragua. From the author of "Glitz".<

George Moran's affair with a beautiful woman leads him into danger when her husband, a mob-connected Dominican cop, discovers what has been happening and sets out to seek revenge on him at all costs. Reprint. 20,000 first printing. NYT.In the world of Elmore Leonard novels, two ex-Marines can sit around a hotel swimming pool in Florida and, as if it were perfectly natural, chat about a friendly fire incident during an "interventionist action" in Santo Domingo. His characters have learned the futility of complaining about a life where deadly violence and moral obligations are all too frequently intertwined. In Cat Chaser George Moran is the hotel manager who got shot at back then; now, he's rekindling his intimate acquaintance with the wife of Andres de Boya, a former Dominican military enforcer who currently invests in real estate with a healthy sideline in drugs.A dizzying series of plot twists involving various grifters and strongmen (both hired and freelance) leads to the grimly comic suspense action that Elmore Leonard fans have come to know and love. But as always, it's Leonard's impressive ear for dialogue that raises Cat Chaser above the herd of crime novels. An example: "That's correct," Scully said, "I'm a consultant… I advise people on business matters, act as a go-between, bring people together that want to make deals… things like that. You want to know any more, come by my office, we'll have a coffee sometime. Okay? Right now I'm going to see Mr. Pradi. Where you come in--I'm gonna knock on his door, he don't open it then I might have to kick it in. I mean the business I got with him is that pressing. So you can give me a key and maybe save yourself a door. What do you think?" Well, what do you think? --Ron Hogan<

Clement Mansell knows how easy it is to get away with murder. The seriously crazed killer is already back on the Detroit streets -- thanks to some nifty courtroom moves by his crafty looker of a lawyer -- and he's feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge on a whim. Homicide Detective Raymond Cruz thinks the "Oklahoma Wildman" crossed the line long before this latest outrage, and he's determined to see that the hayseed psycho does not slip through the legal system's loopholes a second time. But that means a good cop is going to have to play somewhat fast and loose with the rules -- in order to maneuver Mansell into a wild Midwest showdown that he won't be walking away from.<

No one breaks out of the brutal convict labor camp at Five Shadows -- but Corey Bowen is ready to die trying. They framed him to put him in there, and beat him bloody and nearly dead after his last escape attempt. He'll have help this time -- from a lady with murder on her mind and a debt to pay back. Because freedom isn't enough for primed dynamite like Bowen. And he won't leave the corrupt desert hell behind him until a few scores are settled…permanently.<

A story of murder and corruption set in Puerto Rico and Atlantic City. Tommy Donovan has a casino in both places. Our cop hero Vincent is convalescing in Puerto Rico after being shot by a mugger. Vincent gets involved with a Puerto Ricon beauty who leaves to work for Donovan in Atlantic City.<

Karen Di Cilia married a man in the Mafia. When he died he left her $4,000,000 – and instructions that she never touch another man again. He had the connections to ensure that his will was carried out. His friends hired a hustler to guard her. However the hustler had other ideas.<

The first in a series of collections of the author's westerns, written early in his spectacularly successful career, contains "Bounty Hunters," "Forty Lashes Less One," and "Gunsights," featuring a Bonny-and-Clyde pair of gunslingers. Original.

Brendan Early and Dana Moon have tracked renegade Apaches together and gunned down scalp hunters to become Arizona legends. But now they face each other from opposite sides of what newspapers are calling The Rincon Mountain War. Brendan and a gang of mining company gun thugs are dead set on running Dana and "the People of the Mountain" from their land. The characters are unforgettable, the plot packed with action and gunfights from beginning to end.

John Russell has been raised as an Apache. Now he's on his way to live as a white man. But when the stagecoach passengers learn who he is, they want nothing to do with him -- until outlaws ride down on them and they must rely on Russell's guns and his ability to lead them out of the desert. He can't ride with them, but they must walk with him or die.<

Ingram Rescuing a frightened woman from an attack by a one-armed man, Confederate soldier Paul Cable learns that his lands have been taken over by the Union army, and vows to regain his property or die trying.<

Enter the world of Elmore Leonard. The setting is Palm Beach County, Florida, where someone places a live ten-foot alligator in the backyard of the bigoted, redneck judge Bob Gibbs-known to all as Maximum Bob-and his wife, Leanne, a former Weeki Wachee mermaid. Not long after that, shots are fired into the judge's house. It doesn't take much figuring to conclude that someone's out to get him and that malefactor isn't going to stop at the second try. There's a long list of suspects: Dale Crowe, who just got an outrageous sentence for a minor crime; his uncle Elvin, a killer on parole, raring to go again; Dr. Tommy Vasco, the drugged out former medical doctor; his equally bizarre friend, Hector; and Dicky Campau, who makes a living poaching alligators. And there are others.

Somehow Kathy Baker, a nifty young probation officer, has got herself in the middle of all this. She's got to avoid two seducers-the judge and a homicidal maniac-and work with a young police officer who interests her for more than professional reasons. Trying to pick out from his assortment of bad guys, sociopaths, and punks the one who's trying to kill the judge is pure entertainment, as only Elmore Leonard, with his ear for the sound and eye for the sight of lowlife, can provide.

When Jack Foley, a career bank robber, surfaces after tunneling out of a medium-security penitentiary in Florida, he comes face to face with Karen Sisco, a beautiful federal marshal. Though the barrel of her shotgun is pointed right at his face, she doesn't shoot, and Foley's accomplice, Buddy, overpowers her and puts her in the trunk of a car. Foley gets in with her and the car takes off, the escapee seemingly home free. In the cramped darkness of the trunk, the criminal and marshal find they have much in common and by the time the car reaches its destination, the two have become infatuated with each other. After Karen manages to escape, she and Foley try to reconnect outside the confining roles of kidnapper and victim.<

Nobody writes novels like Elmore Leonard, with his crackling dialogue, breathless pacing, and hilarious hard-luck, unfailingly human characters. In his sizzling new novel, the New York Times best selling author crosses continents to tell an adrenaline-charged story of crime and retribution-where double crosses become triple crosses, revenge is where you find it, and absolution is just around the corner.

Father Terry Dunn hears a lot of strange confessions. After all, he's the only priest for miles in the lingering aftermath of the worst massacre Rwanda has ever seen. And Fr. Terry, who has forty- seven bodies in his church that need burying, has just heard one confession too many. After exacting from them a chilling penance, Fr. Terry has to get out of Africa-pronto.

Now Terry is coming home to Detroit, where a five-year-old tax-fraud indictment is hanging over him. Is Terry Dunn really a priest? He certainly doesn't act like one. A fugitive felon on two continents, Terry is being pursued by a cigarette-smuggling cohort, who rolled over on Terry to save jail time-yet still demands his share of the money. But Debbie Dewey has other plans for Terry. She's just been sprung from a three-year fall at Saw- grass Correctional for aggravated assault…and is now trying to make it as a stand-up comic. Debbie and Terry hit it off beautifully. They have the same sense of humor and similar goals:

Both of them want to raise a whole lot of cash. Terry, for the children of Rwanda; Debbie, to score off a guy who owes her sixty-seven thousand dollars. It's Debbie who keeps prying, until she learns the bizarre truth about Terry; Debbie who sells him on going in together for a much bigger payoff than either could manage alone. That is unless the priest is working a con of his own.

With an unforgettable cast of oddballs and schemers-including a mob boss on trial, an unlikely assassin called Mutt, an ex-con con artist who dreams of doing stand-up, and a priest who may not be a priest- Pagan Babies is Elmore Leonard at his double-dealing best. In the hands of this master, the stakes are always life and death. Crime fiction doesn't get any better.

ELMORE LEONARD is the author of thirty-six novels, including such bestsellers as Be Cool, Cuba Libre, Out of Sight, Riding the Rap, Pronto, Rum Punch, Maximum Bob, Get Shorty, and numerous screenplays. He and his wife, Christine, live in a suburb of Detroit.

Visit the Elmore Leonard website at www.elmoreleonard.com.

This is the story of Harry, the ex-mobster who first appeared in "Pronto", who has been kidnapped by a raggle-taggle band of extortionists and ex-cons under the impression that he's richer than he really is.In this sequel to Pronto, Harry Arno has retired from bookmaking but is still closing out some of his outstanding debts. But then his collection agent, an ex-con by the name of Bobby Deo, goes to pick up $1,800 from Chip Ganz and ends up getting hired for a hostage-taking operation (like kidnapping "in a way," Chip tells him, "only different. A lot different.") When Harry's taken by his own man, it's up to United States Marshal Raylan Givens to track him down, in the same methodically relentless fashion he tracked Harry that time he ran off to Italy. Throw in a henchman named Louis Lewis with plans of his own and an attractive young psychic named Reverend Dawn, and you've got yet another crime story that'll keep you on the edge of your seat--occasionally chuckling to yourself--straight through to the finish. (And bonus points to loyal Leonard fans who can spot the crossover elements from Rum Punch and Maximum Bob.) --Ron Hogan<

PLAYMATE OF THE DAYJack Ryan has a man's fists, a boy's mind, and the cunning of an ex-con. Nancy Hayes has a woman's sleek moves and the instincts of a shark. Now, in a Michigan resort town, a rich man wants Jack gone and Nancy for himself.For Ryan the choice is clear: Nancy's promises of pleasure, her crazy, thrill-seeking schemes of breaking into homes, shooting guns, and maybe stealing a whole lot of money are driving him half mad. But there's one thing Ryan doesn't know yet: his new playmate is planning the deadliest thrill of all.Razor-sharp and wholly unpredictable, The Big Bounce is an Elmore Leonard classic--a sly, beguiling story of a man, a woman, and a nasty little crime.<