Raylan [Hardcover]

In the eternal argument about the chicken and the egg, the crux is on which came first. Similarly, those who read Elmore Leonard's new novel, Raylan, may wonder which came first, the novel or the second season of the TV show Justified (also featuring recurring Leonard protagonist, U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens). There are clear similarities between the two, enough to make you wonder whether the TV show inspired the novel or vice versa. But there are also significant difference, making the book its own experience. It's as if a duck came out of the chicken's egg: you'd still have a bird, but you wouldn't mistake one for the other.

As the book kicks off, Raylan must contend with low-level (and low-intelligence) dope dealers Dickie and Coover Crowe (the equivalent of the Bennett brothers in the show). The two have expanded into stealing kidneys from people and then selling them back to the victims, a plot that obviously has others with more brains involved. The Crowe patriarch, meanwhile, owns a mountain that a coal company wants (bringing up more parallels with the TV show. Assisting a beautiful executive is Boyd Crowder, who is no longer dead as in the Leonard story Fire in the Hole, but (like the TV series) is alive and semi-reformed. Added to the mix is Jackie Nevada, a college girl and brilliant poker place who is a minor fugitive. Raylan will get involved with her while pursuing a trio of stoned strippers who rob banks.

These plot lines are not so much intertwined as consecutive, giving Raylan (the book) the feel of three related novellas. This episodic feel may annoy some but it works for me: after all, this is a book that's more about a character than one overall plot.

After Leonard's one misfire of a novel, Djibouti, Raylan shows that Leonard still can deliver the goods. Even if you're new to Elmore Leonard, this is a book worth reading.

Very hard, even intimidating, to be writing a review of a book by the master of crime fiction, long one of my favorite writers. If I could gush, this would be an easier assignment.

This book is basically two separate novellas, though the second one kind of diverges and can be counted as two stories also (for a total of three; such a deal!).

Raylan makes a great character in a TV series, especially portrayed by an excellent actor. But this book barely glances at Raylan as a character. In fact, in RAYLAN, the title character is sketchily formed, completely flat, relying entirely on the readers to use the TV character as a stand in.

Narrative is minimal, as the story is told almost 100% by dialog, some zesty, but not enough to make this a compelling read.

The topics, organ theft, strip mining of mountain tops, and a talented youth becoming a pro poker player, are reasonably current, but the villains are portrayed too cartoonishly, too insanely to regard the stories as social commentary.

Mr. Leonard has written a characteristically zany, loosely plotted book comprised of several Raylan stories that might make good episodes, but as components of a novel don't hold together well. Readers who have not seen the series or read other books by Mr. Leonard probably shouldn't trespass here.

One of the best known characters created by Elmore Leonard is undoubtedly federal marshal Raylan Givens. Raylan's fame, however, rests less on the role he plays in Leonard's writings, than as the star of the brilliant F/X television series JUSTIFIED, easily one of the most critically acclaimed series on television. To the best of my knowledge (based on my own perhaps flawed reading) Raylan appears in three of Leonard's novels and one of his short stories. He was initially in the novel PRONTO, in which he intervenes to save the life of a Miami bookie and then later in RIDING THE RAP, in which he once again tries to save the life of the same bookie. Both are very good novels, though I would not rate either among his very best books, like SWAG or LaBRAVA. Raylan reappeared later in the short story "Fire in the Hole," which I have in his great short story collection WHEN THE WOMEN COME OUT TO DANCE, which is going to be reprinted shortly as FIRE IN THE HOLE. Clearly the publisher is trying to take advantage of the free publicity offered by the TV series.

The Raylan Givens of the books occupies a slightly different universe than the Raylan Givens of the television series. While Leonard has been enthusiastic about the series (although he is listed as an executive producer, he actually does no work on the show at all, the title undoubtedly being a part of the agreement for the producers of the show using his character), saying that Timothy Olyphant delivers his lines precisely the way he envisioned when writing them, he does insist that they didn't get the hat right. This is not a bad thing, in my opinion. Think of the photos you saw of Lyndon Johnson wearing his hat in the sixties. That is precisely the kind of hat that Leonard had in mind.

Apart from the hat, there are odd parallels between the two Raylan Givens. This is due in part to the fact that the TV series has borrowed liberally from the two novels and short story in which Givens originally appeared. For instance, Harry, the bookie in the two novels, appears on the TV series in a much younger incarnation. Several scenes in the books appear in the show. For instance, in an early Season One episode two gunmen are hired to go after Raylan. Encountering him on a road they try to approach him from a distance. One keeps saying, "We just want to talk." Raylan tells him that if he takes another step closer he is going to shoot him. He takes a step and Raylan shoots him. That scene original appeared in PRONTO. The entire plot of the novel RIDING THE RAP is utilized in a Season One episode, with a number of minor modifications. Nonetheless, the resemblances between the episode and the novel are deep and profound. The plot of the short story "Fire in the Hole" provides the narrative for the TV series Pilot, the only major difference being that Boyd Crowder did not die in the series. In fact, due to the TV series Boyd, who unquestionably was killed in the short story, was retroactively resurrected from the dead, the gunshot miraculously not damaging any major organs, all so that this enormously popularly character was able to appear in the novel RAYLAN.

There is a major difference between the three earlier Raylan Givens stories written by Leonard and the new novel RAYLAN. The first three clearly exerted enormous influence on the series, excepting the style of the hat. In the new novel, the TV series perhaps influenced the book more. The plot is not quite consistent with events in the TV series. I'm going to avoid many specifics because to delve into them would be to raise up spoilers for either the book or the series, so let me just say that characters in the book die who do not die in the series, while at least one character who dies in the show dies differently in the novel. It is almost as if the two exist in parallel universes, much like the DC superheroes in Earth One and Earth Two. The show and the novel are both alike and very different.

I'm not entirely clear on whether Leonard wrote the book prior to Season Two of the show (though I suspect he did) or whether he wrote it afterwards. I believe he probably wrote this last winter and that there is a chance he showed the manuscript to the show's writers. Either way, reading the novel after having seen Season Two of JUSTIFIED is a rather schizophrenic experience. As a result, while I love Leonard as a writer, I found I enjoyed this Raylan Givens story considerably less than the previous ones. There are some splendid moments (one involving a bathtub and a kimono is an example), but it almost felt as if in this book Leonard was trying to write about a character who had taken on a life of his own. It is as if Raylan has been publically redefined in a way over which Leonard has minimal control.

RAYLAN is really not a novel so much as a collection of overlapping short stories. The main stories are 1) the story of a group of thieves who steal kidneys off people and then try to sell them back, 2) Carol, born to a miner but now working for the mining company, and her employee Boyd Crowder try to pull off a deception about a crime, 3) a petty thug who forces young women to rob banks for him, and 4) a young woman who plays high stake poker, funded by a local horse breeder. None of the stories are at all bad, none quite like the TV series (though there are definite resemblances and it will be interesting to see if any of the new stories will feature in Season Three of the show), but none especially unforgettable.

All in all, I would rate RAYLAN the weakest of the four Raylan Givens stories I've read so far. I would rank them all in this order: "Fire in the Hole," RIDING THE RAP, PRONTO, and RAYLAN. Mind you, RAYLAN isn't bad; it simply isn't up to Leonard's highest standards. That is still higher than most of the books published today.

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