- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Phoenix; MMP Latest Reissue edition (6 Sep 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0753819716
- ISBN-13: 978-0753819715
- Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 2 x 19.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 232,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Split Images
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"A superb craftsman...his writing is pure pleasure."--" Los Angeles Book Review""Lovely...Skillful...Scarily witty...Leonard is working at the peak of his form."--" The Village Voice""Brilliant...impressive...superb."--" The Washington Post Book World"
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
'Elmore Leonard is the crime-writer's crime-writer, king of all he surveys' Ian Rankin.
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First Sentence
IN THE WINTER OF 1981 a multimillionaire by the name of Robinson Daniels shot a Haitian refugee who had broken into his home in Palm Beach. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
IN THE WINTER OF 1981 a multimillionaire by the name of Robinson Daniels shot a Haitian refugee who had broken into his home in Palm Beach. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Split Images is a great novel and one of the few Elmore Leonard books that you just know is sitting in some Hollywood producers desk marked "unfilmable". Bad guys get away with it and the good guys end up face down on the floor with neat little chalk outlines.
Set in the early eighties shortly after the Reagan assignation attempt a reclusive millionaire obsessed with sitting in his private office watching a video of it again and again, wants to find out what it's like to kill someone and hires an ex-cop kicked off the force for corruption to help him plan it and to get away with it.
Clever, ironic and in parts even tragic this is a fine novel written by one of the genre's greats. Perhaps a little slow at the beginning it gradually builds up pace but is nevertheless an entertaining read.
It's also very anti-violence pointing out that the gun used to shoot Reagan (at the time the world's most powerful man) was actually a hundred dollar "Saturday night special" favoured by muggers and gang members throughout the ghettos of the USA.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A rich man guns down a poor one who has invaded his home. He claims self-defence. The homicide detective called to investigate the slaying concludes that there is nothing problematic, that the shooting is righteous. He also concludes that he should leave the police and accept the rich man's offer of a job. It's better pay, a glamorous lifestyle, but the rich man has a darker purpose, a need to find meaning in his life through the thrill of the chase. The chase, in this case, will be the execution of someone in the public eye.
An intriguing, sophisticated exploration of motive, ennui, and the ways people justify and sanctify their actions and intentions. Leonard includes in this sharply observed little novel an enquiry into the rational behind murder - no serial killers or psychopaths on the loose, but a monotonous toll of death as people are slaughtered by their friends and family over petty arguments, slights, disagreements, or misunderstandings. For the homicide detective, most murder is routine, mundane, ridiculous even.
Beautifully written - Elmore Leonard is a very stylish writer … street wise, hip, but a wordsmith capable of eloquent characterisation and the crafting of a compelling narrative. Leonard is a fine story teller, and this is a fine little story.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Crime thrillers are a genre littered with serial killers and psychopaths killing massed numbers of innocents for some cryptic and deranged purpose, causing the inevitable race against time to... well you get the idea. 'Split Images' by Elmore Leonard is a brilliantly written and fast-paced thriller that would stand out on those merits alone, but one of the reasons that it manages to really do something special is that though it deals with an experienced homicide cop, beautiful reporter and a cold-blooded killer, it avoids being a flat reinterpretation of the same tired old story and instead forms an intriguing examination of motive, self-deception and the misrepresentation of violence in popular culture.
The ways that the characters in the novel justify their actions, particularly violence, is given a fair bit of the narrative space (which is always a sign that Leonard is pointing to something given how expertly minimalist his style is). The violence is random and brutal, given a little more descriptive time than normal for Leonard, again something that contributes to the plot and to the thematic side of the book equally well.
This book is smart, fast, occasionally brutal reading that has a couple of incredible plot twists that you definitely won't see coming. It's by far one of the most memorable thrillers you'll read in a long time and even if you're new to Elmore Leonard it's definitely one to check out.
The ways that the characters in the novel justify their actions, particularly violence, is given a fair bit of the narrative space (which is always a sign that Leonard is pointing to something given how expertly minimalist his style is). The violence is random and brutal, given a little more descriptive time than normal for Leonard, again something that contributes to the plot and to the thematic side of the book equally well.
This book is smart, fast, occasionally brutal reading that has a couple of incredible plot twists that you definitely won't see coming. It's by far one of the most memorable thrillers you'll read in a long time and even if you're new to Elmore Leonard it's definitely one to check out.
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