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Jack Ryan #2
El desconocido nº 89
Jack Ryan se dedica en Detroit a lo que nosotros llamaríamos aquí notificaciones judiciales. Ryan conoce a fondo su profesión y por ello siempre resulta eficaz.
Además nunca da su brazo a torcer, a no ser que una rubia con un gran atractivo sexual le convierta en un hombre vulnerable.
Un abogado de Louisiana, Jack Walz, le ofrecerá llevar a cabo un nuevo trabajo que sólo, sólo en apariencia, nada tiene de especial: encontrar al desconocido Robert Leary, accionista que ha heredado una gran suma de dinero de la compañía ferroviaria Denver Pacific. Ryan acepta. Y los débiles hilos de su destino harán que se deslice por una peligrosa pendiente; y antes de que se dé cuenta de ello se habrá convertido en el tercer miembro de un triángulo de perversos personajes, dispuestos a matar y a colmar su codicia.
La búsqueda del hombre desconocido n.° 89 -un simple cadáver de la morgue-degenerará en una ciega e implacable caza humana. Sólo cuando Ryan conozca a la seductora Lee su trabajo tomará un nuevo cariz. Su lucha contra el alcohol y la degradación despiertan las fibras más sensibles de su ser. Su amor por ella será algo más que un gesto de piedad por su vida, y por esa pasión arriesgará desinteresadamente la suya.
En El desconocido n. ° 89 se narra, bajo su anécdota brutal y su apasionante intriga, la lucha despiadada de unos hombres movidos por la codicia y el dinero, en un mundo de degradación y violencia, cuya única luz redentora es, finalmente, el amor.
Además nunca da su brazo a torcer, a no ser que una rubia con un gran atractivo sexual le convierta en un hombre vulnerable.
Un abogado de Louisiana, Jack Walz, le ofrecerá llevar a cabo un nuevo trabajo que sólo, sólo en apariencia, nada tiene de especial: encontrar al desconocido Robert Leary, accionista que ha heredado una gran suma de dinero de la compañía ferroviaria Denver Pacific. Ryan acepta. Y los débiles hilos de su destino harán que se deslice por una peligrosa pendiente; y antes de que se dé cuenta de ello se habrá convertido en el tercer miembro de un triángulo de perversos personajes, dispuestos a matar y a colmar su codicia.
La búsqueda del hombre desconocido n.° 89 -un simple cadáver de la morgue-degenerará en una ciega e implacable caza humana. Sólo cuando Ryan conozca a la seductora Lee su trabajo tomará un nuevo cariz. Su lucha contra el alcohol y la degradación despiertan las fibras más sensibles de su ser. Su amor por ella será algo más que un gesto de piedad por su vida, y por esa pasión arriesgará desinteresadamente la suya.
En El desconocido n. ° 89 se narra, bajo su anécdota brutal y su apasionante intriga, la lucha despiadada de unos hombres movidos por la codicia y el dinero, en un mundo de degradación y violencia, cuya única luz redentora es, finalmente, el amor.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
403 people are currently reading
1360 people want to read
About the author
Elmore Leonard
211 books3,701 followersElmore John Leonard lived in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Memphis before settling in Detroit in 1935. After serving in the navy, he studied English literature at the University of Detroit where he entered a short story competition. His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures.
Father of Peter Leonard.
Father of Peter Leonard.
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October 4, 2024
LE PAROLE SONO PROIETTILI
Siamo a Detroit, città dove Leonard si trasferì a vivere da piccolo al seguito della famiglia (proveniente dalla nativa New Orleans), e dove, dopo molto girovagare, ha vissuto da adulto a lungo e fino alla sua morte (20 agosto 2013).
Il protagonista, Jack Ryan, ha la fedina penale immacolata e, rispetto alla media dei protagonisti di Leonard, è un angioletto e sembra assolutamente inadeguato per il difficile gioco nel quale va a incastrarsi: non mena le mani, usa poco le armi, e le usa male. Ha solo un grande problema, alle spalle più o meno: l’alcolismo.
Ed è proprio la lotta a questa schiavitù che lo porta a contatto con Denise: sono due anime che a causa della dipendenza riescono a riconoscersi e a iniziare una bella storia che sembra destinata a durare.
In questo aspetto della sua crime novel Leonard immette verità e umanità che probabilmente derivano dal suo personale problema con l’alcol.
Jack Ryan ha trentotto anni, ha fatto cento mestieri, raramente per più di qualche settimana, ora è un ufficiale giudiziario.
Solo che, nei grandi Stati Uniti d’America, anche questa attività è affidata al settore privato, alla libera iniziativa e intraprendenza: e quindi, Jack, più atti giudiziari consegna, più persone cui notificare riesce a rintracciare, più guadagna.
Per metà del romanzo tutti parlano e cercano un tale che sembra essere il perno della storia. Quando finalmente lo incontriamo, ha già un’etichetta addosso che dice la stessa cosa del titolo, Sconosciuto n° 89.
La qualità del dialogo è quella che Elmore Leonard mi ha insegnato a riconoscere sua, e ad apprezzare. I personaggi sono ben sbalzati, stravaganti e originali. La trama con le sue svolte, quando brusche e quando morbide, è uno spasso, ci si sente immersi nelle strade, in quelle stanze, è come assistere, essere presenti.
Un gran bel romanzo nello stile classico di Leonard.
PS
E con questo considero per il momento conclusa la mia perlustrazione del pianeta Leonard: sei titoli in un mese può bastare.
Siamo a Detroit, città dove Leonard si trasferì a vivere da piccolo al seguito della famiglia (proveniente dalla nativa New Orleans), e dove, dopo molto girovagare, ha vissuto da adulto a lungo e fino alla sua morte (20 agosto 2013).
Il protagonista, Jack Ryan, ha la fedina penale immacolata e, rispetto alla media dei protagonisti di Leonard, è un angioletto e sembra assolutamente inadeguato per il difficile gioco nel quale va a incastrarsi: non mena le mani, usa poco le armi, e le usa male. Ha solo un grande problema, alle spalle più o meno: l’alcolismo.
Ed è proprio la lotta a questa schiavitù che lo porta a contatto con Denise: sono due anime che a causa della dipendenza riescono a riconoscersi e a iniziare una bella storia che sembra destinata a durare.
In questo aspetto della sua crime novel Leonard immette verità e umanità che probabilmente derivano dal suo personale problema con l’alcol.
Jack Ryan ha trentotto anni, ha fatto cento mestieri, raramente per più di qualche settimana, ora è un ufficiale giudiziario.
Solo che, nei grandi Stati Uniti d’America, anche questa attività è affidata al settore privato, alla libera iniziativa e intraprendenza: e quindi, Jack, più atti giudiziari consegna, più persone cui notificare riesce a rintracciare, più guadagna.
Per metà del romanzo tutti parlano e cercano un tale che sembra essere il perno della storia. Quando finalmente lo incontriamo, ha già un’etichetta addosso che dice la stessa cosa del titolo, Sconosciuto n° 89.
La qualità del dialogo è quella che Elmore Leonard mi ha insegnato a riconoscere sua, e ad apprezzare. I personaggi sono ben sbalzati, stravaganti e originali. La trama con le sue svolte, quando brusche e quando morbide, è uno spasso, ci si sente immersi nelle strade, in quelle stanze, è come assistere, essere presenti.
Un gran bel romanzo nello stile classico di Leonard.
PS
E con questo considero per il momento conclusa la mia perlustrazione del pianeta Leonard: sei titoli in un mese può bastare.
October 12, 2020
“Unknown Man Number 89” by Elmore Leonard is a novel that was originally published in 1977. just after his novel “Swag” and preceding “The Hunted”. It is a sequel to “The Big Bounce” The main character is Jack Ryan, a process server whose job is to locate people and serve them with legal papers. In this installment , the second in the sequence, Ryan is given an unusual assignment: to trace the whereabouts of a guy who had disappeared some 35 years previously. It turns out to be rather more dangerous than he bargained for, for others are looking for the man also.
This is a crime novel that has some fine deadpan humor, a poignant romance – Ryan falls for a young woman who has problems with the bottle – and also has elements of the Western. Ryan is a kind of latter-day bounty hunter.
We get this writer’s trademark mastery of a sort of street-wise American idiom, and there’s a confiding tone to much of the writing too: Leonard tells the story by telling you about the characters.
The book contains a new introduction by Leonard.
This is a crime novel that has some fine deadpan humor, a poignant romance – Ryan falls for a young woman who has problems with the bottle – and also has elements of the Western. Ryan is a kind of latter-day bounty hunter.
We get this writer’s trademark mastery of a sort of street-wise American idiom, and there’s a confiding tone to much of the writing too: Leonard tells the story by telling you about the characters.
The book contains a new introduction by Leonard.
September 30, 2019
I'm a big Leonard fan, Maximum Bob, and Cuba Libre being a couple of my favorites. This one just didn't do it for me. I am going to try and read it again, I have too much respect for Leonard, it has to be me not him.
August 9, 2025
Unknown Man # 89
Unknown Man # 89 was given a unique title so it would not be confused with other crime novels being released in 1977 or so it seems. In this novel, Leonard reprises the character, Jack Ryan, from his first crime novel, The Big Bounce, released some eight years earlier. There’s absolutely no connection between the two novels. In fact, Ryan reinvented himself by the time this one opens.
In the Big Bounce, Ryan, an ex-wannabe-major-league ball player, gets canned from a job overseeing cucumber pickers, when he lets loose with his home run bat on one of the guys. He hangs around after being warned to leave town and gets in with a crowd pilfering wallets and purses from vacation homes while the tourists go out swimming. He also gets in with a crazy young girl who’ll do just about anything to get the Big Bounce out of life. Not necessarily a brainiac, Ryan is just one if those guys who is a trouble magnet.
Fast Forward to this latest novel and Ryan is a process server in Detroit and buddies with a police detective. He’s asked to find a guy who might have unknowingly inherited stock worth thousands. The client wants to collect a finder’s fee. But trouble is Ryan’s middle name and the guy being sought is a stone cold killer. Ryan falls for the wife, after running into her at an AA meeting and starts getting protective. About then, a lightbulb goes off and he realizes his clients aren’t exactly model citizens. So you get a story about whether Ryan can ever tell Denise what’s really going on or whether she’ll ever trust him or presume he’s another one out to hustle her. You also get the classic story about a valuable suitcase and everybody and their grandmother gunning for it.
What makes this novel work is how deftly Leonard builds the characters and fills them out with minor details from the guy with the voice booming everywhere that you’re embarrassed to be around to the alcoholic daze some find themselves in, unable to clamber out. A brilliantly conceived novel.
Unknown Man # 89 was given a unique title so it would not be confused with other crime novels being released in 1977 or so it seems. In this novel, Leonard reprises the character, Jack Ryan, from his first crime novel, The Big Bounce, released some eight years earlier. There’s absolutely no connection between the two novels. In fact, Ryan reinvented himself by the time this one opens.
In the Big Bounce, Ryan, an ex-wannabe-major-league ball player, gets canned from a job overseeing cucumber pickers, when he lets loose with his home run bat on one of the guys. He hangs around after being warned to leave town and gets in with a crowd pilfering wallets and purses from vacation homes while the tourists go out swimming. He also gets in with a crazy young girl who’ll do just about anything to get the Big Bounce out of life. Not necessarily a brainiac, Ryan is just one if those guys who is a trouble magnet.
Fast Forward to this latest novel and Ryan is a process server in Detroit and buddies with a police detective. He’s asked to find a guy who might have unknowingly inherited stock worth thousands. The client wants to collect a finder’s fee. But trouble is Ryan’s middle name and the guy being sought is a stone cold killer. Ryan falls for the wife, after running into her at an AA meeting and starts getting protective. About then, a lightbulb goes off and he realizes his clients aren’t exactly model citizens. So you get a story about whether Ryan can ever tell Denise what’s really going on or whether she’ll ever trust him or presume he’s another one out to hustle her. You also get the classic story about a valuable suitcase and everybody and their grandmother gunning for it.
What makes this novel work is how deftly Leonard builds the characters and fills them out with minor details from the guy with the voice booming everywhere that you’re embarrassed to be around to the alcoholic daze some find themselves in, unable to clamber out. A brilliantly conceived novel.
September 30, 2019
This was the first Elmore Leonard novel I ever read.
I purchased it on a road trip to Texas while passing through Alexandria, Louisiana.
This would have been back in the late 70s or very early 80s.
The cover pictured above is the only copy of this novel that I own. It’s a battered paperback published by Dell in December 1978. A ridiculous cover illustration that bears no relation to the story in anyway unless it’s supposed to depict an autopsy lead character Ryan attends with his cop friend “Dick Speed”.
I purchased a newer copy of this on eBay last week. Supposedly it’s in “great” condition. Amazon doesn’t have any copies of this novel reasonably priced.
Outrageous.
No book written by Elmore Leonard should ever go out of circulation.
Jack Ryan returns.
This is not the “Frank Ryan” of
aka
.
It’s the same Jack Ryan from
.
A couple of characters from RYAN’S RULES/SWAG return in cameos.
The continuity of this series from book to book is nonexistent.
Mentioned in passing is that Jack Ryan worked for a while picking fruit and vegetables with a migrant crew up in Bad Axe, Michigan which is also referred to as the “Thumb Region of the Lower Peninsula”.
Also mentioned is that Jack Ryan played baseball early on for a minor league team but washed out. He was also involved in some minor league criminality.
Jack Ryan- older & wiser- has gotten an education and works for various lawyers in the Detroit area as a process server. Nothing so heavy anyone ever throws a punch at him. Ryan is a happy go lucky bachelor, sort of sweet on a nice girl named “Rita” but she’s barely a character in this novel so infrequent are her appearances.
Jack also drinks a bit too much. But he counts his drinks because someone once told him that he wasn’t an alcoholic if he could maintain a count of the drinks he’s had.
This becomes an important sub-plot in this novel and Leonard devotes a good three chapters to alcoholism because being an alcoholic is something personal to Elmore Leonard.
Had Dutch Leonard not stopped his drinking binges we wouldn’t have all the terrific Elmore Leonard novels we all cherish.
Ryan is retained by a good ol’ boy from Louisiana (a “Mr. Perez”) who runs what turns out to be a sleazy racket. He searches bank records for unclaimed assets from various stocks and bonds and for a fee (usually 50% or more of the stock value) he locates the missing and usually unaware stock holders and tells them of their good fortune. If he fails to locate the stock holders he keeps the assets.
“Mr. Perez” hires Ryan to find the heir to a passle of stocks (one “Robert Lear, Jr”) purchased for him by a grandparent possibly employed as a domestic by a wealthy client –we never really know the origins of the stocks.
In this case, the heir -Bobby Lear- appears to have disappeared.
While on the case, Ryan discovers that Bobby Lear is a psychotic who’s been in and out of mental hospitals since he was a teenager.
Bobby Lear has one big hang-up: he kills people. For the pure hell of it. He beat his first wife to death with his bare hands, just backed her into a closet and kept hitting her until she stopped moving.
Robert Lear, Jr also owes the balance of the heist money stolen when he and “Virgil Royal” and another fool robbed the Wyandotte Savings and Loan.
Virgil was sentenced to eight years in the Jackson, Michigan jug.
Bobby Lear put on his crazy act during the trial and got out after serving only a few months in a mental institution.
Virgil just naturally craves vengeance and he wants his share of the robbery and Bobby Lear’s life in exchange for time served.
Unfortunately, Bobby Lear is killed before Virgil locates the missing cash.
Ryan’s cop buddy, Dick Speed, contacts Ryan with news of Bobby Lear’s demise. Tells him to come to the morgue and see for himself.
Jack Ryan finds himself involved in the case, trying to get the stocks for the widowed wife and falling for her in the process.
He also has to contend with “Mr. Perez” and his loony, psychotic errand boy brought up from down South.
All the time Virgil Royal is looming somewhere always in the background.
I loved this novel.
It’s not Elmore Leonard’s best novel but it’s my personal favorite.
I purchased it on a road trip to Texas while passing through Alexandria, Louisiana.
This would have been back in the late 70s or very early 80s.
The cover pictured above is the only copy of this novel that I own. It’s a battered paperback published by Dell in December 1978. A ridiculous cover illustration that bears no relation to the story in anyway unless it’s supposed to depict an autopsy lead character Ryan attends with his cop friend “Dick Speed”.
I purchased a newer copy of this on eBay last week. Supposedly it’s in “great” condition. Amazon doesn’t have any copies of this novel reasonably priced.
Outrageous.
No book written by Elmore Leonard should ever go out of circulation.
Jack Ryan returns.
This is not the “Frank Ryan” of
aka
.It’s the same Jack Ryan from
. A couple of characters from RYAN’S RULES/SWAG return in cameos.
The continuity of this series from book to book is nonexistent.
Mentioned in passing is that Jack Ryan worked for a while picking fruit and vegetables with a migrant crew up in Bad Axe, Michigan which is also referred to as the “Thumb Region of the Lower Peninsula”.
Also mentioned is that Jack Ryan played baseball early on for a minor league team but washed out. He was also involved in some minor league criminality.
He had sold insurance one time, for three weeks. He had sold new cars for several different Detroit dealerships; but, each place, the sales manager or the owner turned out to be a pain in the ass. He’d worked construction and driven a truck. He’d been with Local 299 of the Teamsters as a business agent for a while and got into a couple of fistfights that were interesting. He’d worked on the line at Chevrolet truck assembly in Flint, quit before he went out of his mind, and got a job at an Abercrombie’s store in Troy, but only lasted two weeks.
One day during the Christmas rush he told a lady if she didn’t like the service why didn’t she go someplace else. He’d said to her, “Why should a nice person like you stand around taking a lot of shit?” Ryan was always polite. He had also been into a little breaking and entering when he was much younger and working for a carpet-cleaning company; but it was more for fun than profit; see if he could get away with it. He had been arrested only once, for felonious assault – belting a migrant crew chief the summer he picked cucumbers up in the Thumb- but the charge had been dismissed. He had never served time.
Jack Ryan- older & wiser- has gotten an education and works for various lawyers in the Detroit area as a process server. Nothing so heavy anyone ever throws a punch at him. Ryan is a happy go lucky bachelor, sort of sweet on a nice girl named “Rita” but she’s barely a character in this novel so infrequent are her appearances.
Jack also drinks a bit too much. But he counts his drinks because someone once told him that he wasn’t an alcoholic if he could maintain a count of the drinks he’s had.
This becomes an important sub-plot in this novel and Leonard devotes a good three chapters to alcoholism because being an alcoholic is something personal to Elmore Leonard.
Had Dutch Leonard not stopped his drinking binges we wouldn’t have all the terrific Elmore Leonard novels we all cherish.
Ryan is retained by a good ol’ boy from Louisiana (a “Mr. Perez”) who runs what turns out to be a sleazy racket. He searches bank records for unclaimed assets from various stocks and bonds and for a fee (usually 50% or more of the stock value) he locates the missing and usually unaware stock holders and tells them of their good fortune. If he fails to locate the stock holders he keeps the assets.
“Mr. Perez” hires Ryan to find the heir to a passle of stocks (one “Robert Lear, Jr”) purchased for him by a grandparent possibly employed as a domestic by a wealthy client –we never really know the origins of the stocks.
In this case, the heir -Bobby Lear- appears to have disappeared.
While on the case, Ryan discovers that Bobby Lear is a psychotic who’s been in and out of mental hospitals since he was a teenager.
Bobby Lear has one big hang-up: he kills people. For the pure hell of it. He beat his first wife to death with his bare hands, just backed her into a closet and kept hitting her until she stopped moving.
Robert Lear, Jr also owes the balance of the heist money stolen when he and “Virgil Royal” and another fool robbed the Wyandotte Savings and Loan.
Virgil was sentenced to eight years in the Jackson, Michigan jug.
Bobby Lear put on his crazy act during the trial and got out after serving only a few months in a mental institution.
Virgil just naturally craves vengeance and he wants his share of the robbery and Bobby Lear’s life in exchange for time served.
Unfortunately, Bobby Lear is killed before Virgil locates the missing cash.
Ryan’s cop buddy, Dick Speed, contacts Ryan with news of Bobby Lear’s demise. Tells him to come to the morgue and see for himself.
The autopsy assistant was at the opposite end of the tray table now. He replaced the skull section and – as Ryan watched – carefully pulled the hair and scalp up over the skull, revealing the face a little at a time, a man appearing, features forming, as though the assistant were fitting the lifeless skull with a Robert Leary mask.
Ryan stared at the face, the mustache, the closed eyes, the round cap of coarse black hair.
He said, “Jesus…look. The guy’s black”
“He’s black all right,” Speed said. “That what colored guys are, they’re black.”
“Jesus,” Ryan said.
“You didn’t know that? You’re looking for a guy and you don’t know what color he is?”
“I don’t know why,” Ryan said. “I guess I should’ve, the people he hung around with, at least some of them. But the thing is- you see, his wife is white.”
Dick Speed waited. “Yeah?”
“I mean she’s white.”
“You mean very white, uh?” Dick Speed said. “Is that it?”
Ryan wasn’t sure what he meant.
Jack Ryan finds himself involved in the case, trying to get the stocks for the widowed wife and falling for her in the process.
He also has to contend with “Mr. Perez” and his loony, psychotic errand boy brought up from down South.
All the time Virgil Royal is looming somewhere always in the background.
I loved this novel.
It’s not Elmore Leonard’s best novel but it’s my personal favorite.
December 13, 2013
(This is a blog post I did that covers the two Leonard books featuring Jack Ryan.)
One of my favorite aspects about Elmore Leonard’s writing was that by shifting perspectives constantly he had the ability to make you sympathize with a character so that the hero of the story might not be who you thought it was at the beginning of a book. Fans of television’s Justified who pick up Pronto for the first time will probably be confused as to why the first half of the book makes Raylan Givens look like a doofus being easily outwitted by Harry Arno. It’s only late in the story that Raylan emerges as the real main character while Harry fades into a whining supporting role.
Leonard would even take a character that appeared sympathetic in one book and make them far less so in another. Probably the most famous example of this was how the main characters in The Switch became the bickering lowlifes of Rum Punch. (Better known by its movie title of Jackie Brown.)
In the Leonard universe, being cool was the thing that counted most. Whether the lead was a cop or a crook, all sins were forgiven so long as they were cool about it. When they became uncool, they became unlikable and almost by default the villains of that story. Jack Ryan from The Big Bounce and Unknown Man #89 is unique because it seems like Leonard couldn’t decide if he was cool or not.
Ryan certainly doesn’t seem like a good guy at the beginning of The Big Bounce where he’s in hot water after beating up a guy with a baseball bat. Ryan loses his job picking cucumbers and is lucky not to land in jail. He follows that up by brazenly stealing a bunch of wallets after walking into a house while the owners are partying on a nearby lakeside beach. However, a local resort owner sees something worthwhile in Ryan and hires him as a handyman. Jack isn’t entirely sure how he feels about this job or having someone trust him. New temptation arrives in the form of a woman named Nancy, the mistress of a wealthy businessman who is tired of hanging out at his lake house and has been entertaining herself by shooting out random windows and running other people off the road in her car.
Nancy entices and teases Jack into engaging in some vandalism and house breaking with her, but she has a bigger goal in mind. Her lover is going to have a large amount of cash in his house, and she wants Jack to help her steal it.
The Big Bounce was Leonard’s first contemporary crime novel, but he already had his hallmarks of sharp dialogue and a variety of offbeat characters engaging with each other while working their own angles. What makes it interesting is how it hinges on which way Jack will turn. Nancy seems like a kindred soul and that the two should instantly become a Bonnie & Clyde style duo. However, seeing Nancy’s random cruelty and disregard for other people seems to awaken Ryan’s seemingly dormant empathy.
It’s a very different Jack Ryan that we meet in Unknown Man # 89. Set years later in Detroit, Jack has gone straight and is a process server with a reputation of being able to find almost anyone. Mr. Perez comes to town from Louisiana and hires Jack to find a man as part of a complicated stock scheme. A criminal named Virgil Royal is also looking for the same guy to recover some money he thinks he’s owed.
When Jack meets the missing man’s drunken wife Denise, he finds himself falling for her and starts to screw up Perez’s business. To keep things on track, Perez brings in a redneck thug while pushing Jack to help him finalize the deal. Jack begins his own schemes to help Denise keep the money for herself even if she doesn’t want it.
Another element has been added to Jack at this point with his being an admitted alcoholic who has been on the wagon. While he certainly liked his beer in The Big Bounce, there was never a sense that Jack was a drunk so that element seems to come out of nowhere and a bit clumsily used to establish an instant connection between him and Denise as he tries to help her get sober.
There’s an odd arc to Jack through these two books with him starting as a cocky small-time petty crook whose ego has him on a permanent path of self-destruction who eventually comes to appreciate the value of someone giving him a break after meeting a truly bad woman. Then the subdued Jack Ryan who works an offbeat but honest job finds himself embroiled with criminals and doing some pretty shady stuff in order to help out an innocent woman. Or at least that’s what he says. It often feels like Jack is rebelling against Perez for his arrogant assumption that Jack has been bought and paid for. So there’s the return of a Jack Ryan acting in destructive ways out of pride, just in service of a nobler cause.
Re-reading the two books back to back illustrates how Leonard's characters were very often not what they appeared to be, or even who they thought they were themselves.
Originally posted at Kemper‘s Book Blog.
One of my favorite aspects about Elmore Leonard’s writing was that by shifting perspectives constantly he had the ability to make you sympathize with a character so that the hero of the story might not be who you thought it was at the beginning of a book. Fans of television’s Justified who pick up Pronto for the first time will probably be confused as to why the first half of the book makes Raylan Givens look like a doofus being easily outwitted by Harry Arno. It’s only late in the story that Raylan emerges as the real main character while Harry fades into a whining supporting role.
Leonard would even take a character that appeared sympathetic in one book and make them far less so in another. Probably the most famous example of this was how the main characters in The Switch became the bickering lowlifes of Rum Punch. (Better known by its movie title of Jackie Brown.)
In the Leonard universe, being cool was the thing that counted most. Whether the lead was a cop or a crook, all sins were forgiven so long as they were cool about it. When they became uncool, they became unlikable and almost by default the villains of that story. Jack Ryan from The Big Bounce and Unknown Man #89 is unique because it seems like Leonard couldn’t decide if he was cool or not.
Ryan certainly doesn’t seem like a good guy at the beginning of The Big Bounce where he’s in hot water after beating up a guy with a baseball bat. Ryan loses his job picking cucumbers and is lucky not to land in jail. He follows that up by brazenly stealing a bunch of wallets after walking into a house while the owners are partying on a nearby lakeside beach. However, a local resort owner sees something worthwhile in Ryan and hires him as a handyman. Jack isn’t entirely sure how he feels about this job or having someone trust him. New temptation arrives in the form of a woman named Nancy, the mistress of a wealthy businessman who is tired of hanging out at his lake house and has been entertaining herself by shooting out random windows and running other people off the road in her car.
Nancy entices and teases Jack into engaging in some vandalism and house breaking with her, but she has a bigger goal in mind. Her lover is going to have a large amount of cash in his house, and she wants Jack to help her steal it.
The Big Bounce was Leonard’s first contemporary crime novel, but he already had his hallmarks of sharp dialogue and a variety of offbeat characters engaging with each other while working their own angles. What makes it interesting is how it hinges on which way Jack will turn. Nancy seems like a kindred soul and that the two should instantly become a Bonnie & Clyde style duo. However, seeing Nancy’s random cruelty and disregard for other people seems to awaken Ryan’s seemingly dormant empathy.
It’s a very different Jack Ryan that we meet in Unknown Man # 89. Set years later in Detroit, Jack has gone straight and is a process server with a reputation of being able to find almost anyone. Mr. Perez comes to town from Louisiana and hires Jack to find a man as part of a complicated stock scheme. A criminal named Virgil Royal is also looking for the same guy to recover some money he thinks he’s owed.
When Jack meets the missing man’s drunken wife Denise, he finds himself falling for her and starts to screw up Perez’s business. To keep things on track, Perez brings in a redneck thug while pushing Jack to help him finalize the deal. Jack begins his own schemes to help Denise keep the money for herself even if she doesn’t want it.
Another element has been added to Jack at this point with his being an admitted alcoholic who has been on the wagon. While he certainly liked his beer in The Big Bounce, there was never a sense that Jack was a drunk so that element seems to come out of nowhere and a bit clumsily used to establish an instant connection between him and Denise as he tries to help her get sober.
There’s an odd arc to Jack through these two books with him starting as a cocky small-time petty crook whose ego has him on a permanent path of self-destruction who eventually comes to appreciate the value of someone giving him a break after meeting a truly bad woman. Then the subdued Jack Ryan who works an offbeat but honest job finds himself embroiled with criminals and doing some pretty shady stuff in order to help out an innocent woman. Or at least that’s what he says. It often feels like Jack is rebelling against Perez for his arrogant assumption that Jack has been bought and paid for. So there’s the return of a Jack Ryan acting in destructive ways out of pride, just in service of a nobler cause.
Re-reading the two books back to back illustrates how Leonard's characters were very often not what they appeared to be, or even who they thought they were themselves.
Originally posted at Kemper‘s Book Blog.
November 24, 2021
Unknown Man #89 is told in a dark and gloomy tone. The plot is saturated with the realities of alcoholism. The criminals are patient and brooding and their acts are slow and deliberate. The main character, Jack Ryan, is a person that exudes his disenchantment with life. Even the weather, with its wet snow and drizzly rain, plays its part. And the only work of art that’s referenced in the book is a
painting
by Winslow Homer that speaks to hopeless despair.
But under all this heaviness, Leonard tells his tale of humanity. As with all Leonard novels, it would be impossible to predict the ending given that the characters are just like us. They make decisions based on their reaction to the moment, and then find themselves living with their decisions as best they can. The actual ending of Unknown Man #89 makes perfect sense, but only because Leonard lets his characters live their lives in response to the world they find themselves in.
The icing on the cake, however, is Leonard’s brief subplot about that painting. With only a few words that are skillfully mixed into the final chapters, Leonard embeds [[[a story]within a story] within a story]. It’s a literary hat trick that kept me thinking about Unknown Man #89 after the last page was read.
But under all this heaviness, Leonard tells his tale of humanity. As with all Leonard novels, it would be impossible to predict the ending given that the characters are just like us. They make decisions based on their reaction to the moment, and then find themselves living with their decisions as best they can. The actual ending of Unknown Man #89 makes perfect sense, but only because Leonard lets his characters live their lives in response to the world they find themselves in.
The icing on the cake, however, is Leonard’s brief subplot about that painting. With only a few words that are skillfully mixed into the final chapters, Leonard embeds [[[a story]within a story] within a story]. It’s a literary hat trick that kept me thinking about Unknown Man #89 after the last page was read.
March 9, 2024
All the characters had particularities that I hadn't seen before in other crime books. The main character was an unpretentious yet cagey process server. He was warned not to fuck with Mr. Perez, but he did so anyway. All parts of the story fit together neatly. Chapter 13 is an unsettling account of falling off the wagon. It seemed incongruous but turned out to be the key event in the story. The writing is Higginsesque but more comprehendible. Leonard delivered on his promise to "leave out the parts that readers tend to skip."
March 14, 2018
Unknown Man 89 is the 39th book I've read by Elmore Leonard, 40th if you count the bound version of his 10 Rules of Writing. George Pelecanos put Unknown Man in his top 5 Leonard novels in a list I found online. Not sure if it would be that high for me but it is excellent.
It's not quite the straight noir that a lot of his early stuff is, nor is it as funny as the later work. It has a moving subplot about recovering from alcoholism. The writing is as lean and the dialog as clever as expected. Like Hemingway if he had a sense of humor and swore more (not an original observation, but an accurate one).
A tentative top five Leonard list:
1) Cuba Libre
2) City Primeval
3) Tishomingo Blues
4) The Hot Kid
5) Get Shorty
Cuba Libre is the solid favorite, but if I reread Riding the Rap, Valdez is Coming, Pronto, Glitz, The Switch, Rum Punch, or Swag the others might change. Unknown Man 89 might make the cut after more thought. Too many good ones.
It's not quite the straight noir that a lot of his early stuff is, nor is it as funny as the later work. It has a moving subplot about recovering from alcoholism. The writing is as lean and the dialog as clever as expected. Like Hemingway if he had a sense of humor and swore more (not an original observation, but an accurate one).
A tentative top five Leonard list:
1) Cuba Libre
2) City Primeval
3) Tishomingo Blues
4) The Hot Kid
5) Get Shorty
Cuba Libre is the solid favorite, but if I reread Riding the Rap, Valdez is Coming, Pronto, Glitz, The Switch, Rum Punch, or Swag the others might change. Unknown Man 89 might make the cut after more thought. Too many good ones.
November 4, 2025
I like Leonard but this just never clicked with me. There was too much dialogue, not a lot of it was interesting, and a plot that was way too predictable.
August 28, 2021
5/5
Elmore, Old friend, old pal, my favorite author, you truly outdid yourself this time. The exposition, the actual meat of the book, fantastic and deep at times, way more than I've been used to the past couple Elmores, the dialogue straight banging, absolute wonderful piece of fiction here. Such a fun time with this one, and it was a little more introspective than usual with still the hallmarks of snappy writing, cinematic scenes, realistic but intriguing characters, and unparalled dialogue.
Love ya bud <3
Elmore, Old friend, old pal, my favorite author, you truly outdid yourself this time. The exposition, the actual meat of the book, fantastic and deep at times, way more than I've been used to the past couple Elmores, the dialogue straight banging, absolute wonderful piece of fiction here. Such a fun time with this one, and it was a little more introspective than usual with still the hallmarks of snappy writing, cinematic scenes, realistic but intriguing characters, and unparalled dialogue.
Love ya bud <3
August 9, 2011
Brilliant descriptions of (interestingly enough) morgues and AA meetings - some of Leonard's best writing.
In stock-Leonard hilarious style, he describes two thieves' ransacking of a room (to steal some papers) as follows:
"They used Mr. Perez's black Samsonite two-suiter. Virgil cleared off the desk, taking loose papers, folders, and notebooks, scratchpads, and everything in the desk, including hotel stationary and the room-service menu, and dropped everything in the suitcase open on the floor. Tunafish made them a couple of scotch and Coca-Cola drinks. Virgil had to jimmy open Mr. Perez's locked attache case. Right on top was a .32-caliber Baretta, nice little mean-looking piece. Virgil slipped it into his jacket. He dumped the papers and file folds, lists of names and addresses, in the suitcase and went looking for more, finding a telephone-address book and a note pad with some writing on it in the bedroom and a copies of The Wall Street Journal and Business Week in the bathroom. Virgil said, Shit, grinning and took the roll of toilet paper. He took the Gideon Bible, some more magazines, and the folded laundry bags in the closet, and topped off the load in the suitcase with a painting on the wall he liked of a cat out in a sailboat with the mast broken off and this terrible motherfucker storm coming at him. Virgil sat down and had his scotch and Coke drink, wondering if the cat made it, then wondering where the cat had got the sailboat, if it was his or if he'd stolen it someplace and was trying to get away, shit, when the storm got him." -p.211
In stock-Leonard hilarious style, he describes two thieves' ransacking of a room (to steal some papers) as follows:
"They used Mr. Perez's black Samsonite two-suiter. Virgil cleared off the desk, taking loose papers, folders, and notebooks, scratchpads, and everything in the desk, including hotel stationary and the room-service menu, and dropped everything in the suitcase open on the floor. Tunafish made them a couple of scotch and Coca-Cola drinks. Virgil had to jimmy open Mr. Perez's locked attache case. Right on top was a .32-caliber Baretta, nice little mean-looking piece. Virgil slipped it into his jacket. He dumped the papers and file folds, lists of names and addresses, in the suitcase and went looking for more, finding a telephone-address book and a note pad with some writing on it in the bedroom and a copies of The Wall Street Journal and Business Week in the bathroom. Virgil said, Shit, grinning and took the roll of toilet paper. He took the Gideon Bible, some more magazines, and the folded laundry bags in the closet, and topped off the load in the suitcase with a painting on the wall he liked of a cat out in a sailboat with the mast broken off and this terrible motherfucker storm coming at him. Virgil sat down and had his scotch and Coke drink, wondering if the cat made it, then wondering where the cat had got the sailboat, if it was his or if he'd stolen it someplace and was trying to get away, shit, when the storm got him." -p.211
March 3, 2015
Like Ian Rankin (whose Black & Blue I recently reviewed and which, okay, was more teacher education Common Core navel-gazing than actual review), I’ve read a lot of Elmore Leonard recently without actually penning a full review. This is the fifth of his books I’ve read since September (and the tenth overall), and while I’ve loved each and every one of them, this is the first one I’ve engaged with on an emotional level. That immediately elevates it to the upper echelon of Leonard’s not-inconsiderable bibliography.
So, for the uninitiated, what’s so great about Leonard? Let’s start here: Without fear of hyperbole, he’s the greatest crime writer of the 20th Century. Better than Chandler, better than Hammett, better than Ellroy, full stop, hands down. Better even – whisper it – than Agatha Christie (although I think I’d be more likely to classify her as a mystery writer). Leonard didn’t invent the genre, but he polished it to a high sheen. If you love crime novels – or even if you just appreciate them from a distance – Elmore does everything you love about them as well as it can be done. Tough guys? Check. Street-smart broads? You know it. Double crosses and long cons? Done and done, without breaking a sweat. Whip-smart dialogue that practically crackles on the page? Absolutely. And it’s all accomplished in unadorned prose that, like Kurt Vonnegut’s best work, seems effortless but is nearly impossible to replicate. (The quotes in boldface peppered throughout the rest of this review are some of Leonard’s best tips for being a good writer.)
My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.
All of this is present and accounted for in Unknown Man #89, only with some added emotional heft. Jack Ryan is a Detroit process server – so charming and ingratiating that the served often don’t mind – who’s hired by a New Orleans businessman named Mr. Perez to track down the recipient of some shares of stock. The stockholder turns up in the local morgue – toetagged with the words in the book’s title – and Ryan is then tasked by Perez with tracking down the deceased’s next of kin, his alcoholic wife, Denise.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Ryan eventually learns she’s living outside Detroit, and when he sets up shop there, he coincidentally runs into her at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (which is, to be fair, the only phony note in the whole book). She’s cleaned up and tidied up, and what follows is a relatively quiet, surprisingly touching sequence where Ryan and Denise get to know each other, all without Ryan ever revealing who he is or why he’s there, choosing instead to enjoy his time with Denise rather than pursuing the job Perez set for him. Perez, of course, has developed plans of his own, and sets himself to stealing the shares of stock – and the money they represent – for himself. What follows is a series of feints and counter-feints, as Ryan and Denise set about double-crossing Perez with the help of a minor-league, big-hat-wearing criminal named Virgil Royal and a Detroit cop named Dick Speed.
Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.
In some ways it’s boilerplate Leonard. Ryan is a tough-talker, Denise is too cool for school, and Perez (and his hired muscle, Raymond Gidre) are colorful con men who threaten their enemies by dangling them out a window. Virgil is sort of a dummy, and his sidekick Tunafish is one step down from that. But complicating things is the emotional gravity that has largely been absent from Leonard’s earlier works. Perez’s first gambit to steal the money from Denise is actually to hire Virgil (like I said, double- and triple-crosses, and no allegiance save one is solid) to get her drunk and have her sign the papers. The scene is, in a word, heartbreaking. We first meet Denise in Detroit as a miserable drunk, and her transformation to the optimistic artist Ryan encounters in Rochester is dramatic. But with one ill-intentioned, eminently selfish move, Denise is reduced once again to her messy, belligerent former self. Ryan handles this with panache, kicking Virgil out of Denise’s apartment, sobering her up, and leaving with her for Florida the next day, where the two of them can get out from under Perez’s suffocating influence. The halting romance that ensues is balanced on the knife edge between pragmatic and sentimental. It’s a graceful sequence that looks nothing like anything Leonard had previously written. It’s just a lull, though, as Ryan and Denise realize there’s a reckoning waiting for them in Detroit, and it needs to be resolved before they can ever truly settle down. Blood will be shed.
I won’t read a book that starts with a description of the weather.
As my first proper Elmore Leonard review, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the dialogue. It exists on another plane, the one where the characters might as well be speaking lines transcribed directly from a voice recorder planted in some seedy bar on the wrong side of the tracks. I could share any number of exchanges, but I’m partial to this one between Ryan and Virgil, as Ryan prepares to initiate the next part of his plan:
"‘I don’t see you doing much,’ Ryan said. ‘You want something, but I don’t see you breaking your ass especially to get it.’
‘I’m being patient,’ Virgil said, ‘waiting till everybody make up their mind. You want a real drink this time?’
‘No, this is fine.’ Ryan still had half a Coke. He watched Virgil nod to the waitress. She was over at the bar where several black guys were sitting with their hats on, glancing at themselves in the bar mirror as they talked and jived around. ‘What’s this, the hat club?’ Ryan said. ‘There’s some pretty ones, but they can’t touch yours.’
Virgil was looking at him from beneath the slightly, nicely curved brim of his uptown Stetson. ‘I get my money, what’s owed me, I’ll give it to you,’ he said.
‘I’ll take it,’ Ryan said, ‘and everybody’ll be happy. If we can get you to do a little work.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘First, how much we talking about? What you say Bobby owes you?’
‘Half.’
‘Half of what I heard he got is nothing.’
‘No, I’m telling you. Round it off, ten grand,’ Virgil said. ‘Now you tell me, how much we talking about? The whole deal.’"
There’s a rhythm and cadence to all of Leonard’s dialogue – playful, but with the internal logic of really good jazz. It rings true, and unlike a lot of dialogue, it just sounds good when read aloud.
Unknown Man #89 ends, as many of Leonard’s novels do, in a way that can best be termed “cautiously optimistic.” The bad guys get their comeuppance, the good guys get their reward – although it might look different than they thought it would – and the moral of the story, if there is one, seems to be this: “Be careful who you trust.” But this ending resonates more for me than in Leonard’s other books because, for the first time, the main characters have suffered enough for us to want them to be happy.
Read all my reviews at goldstarforrobotboy.net
So, for the uninitiated, what’s so great about Leonard? Let’s start here: Without fear of hyperbole, he’s the greatest crime writer of the 20th Century. Better than Chandler, better than Hammett, better than Ellroy, full stop, hands down. Better even – whisper it – than Agatha Christie (although I think I’d be more likely to classify her as a mystery writer). Leonard didn’t invent the genre, but he polished it to a high sheen. If you love crime novels – or even if you just appreciate them from a distance – Elmore does everything you love about them as well as it can be done. Tough guys? Check. Street-smart broads? You know it. Double crosses and long cons? Done and done, without breaking a sweat. Whip-smart dialogue that practically crackles on the page? Absolutely. And it’s all accomplished in unadorned prose that, like Kurt Vonnegut’s best work, seems effortless but is nearly impossible to replicate. (The quotes in boldface peppered throughout the rest of this review are some of Leonard’s best tips for being a good writer.)
My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.
All of this is present and accounted for in Unknown Man #89, only with some added emotional heft. Jack Ryan is a Detroit process server – so charming and ingratiating that the served often don’t mind – who’s hired by a New Orleans businessman named Mr. Perez to track down the recipient of some shares of stock. The stockholder turns up in the local morgue – toetagged with the words in the book’s title – and Ryan is then tasked by Perez with tracking down the deceased’s next of kin, his alcoholic wife, Denise.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Ryan eventually learns she’s living outside Detroit, and when he sets up shop there, he coincidentally runs into her at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (which is, to be fair, the only phony note in the whole book). She’s cleaned up and tidied up, and what follows is a relatively quiet, surprisingly touching sequence where Ryan and Denise get to know each other, all without Ryan ever revealing who he is or why he’s there, choosing instead to enjoy his time with Denise rather than pursuing the job Perez set for him. Perez, of course, has developed plans of his own, and sets himself to stealing the shares of stock – and the money they represent – for himself. What follows is a series of feints and counter-feints, as Ryan and Denise set about double-crossing Perez with the help of a minor-league, big-hat-wearing criminal named Virgil Royal and a Detroit cop named Dick Speed.
Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.
In some ways it’s boilerplate Leonard. Ryan is a tough-talker, Denise is too cool for school, and Perez (and his hired muscle, Raymond Gidre) are colorful con men who threaten their enemies by dangling them out a window. Virgil is sort of a dummy, and his sidekick Tunafish is one step down from that. But complicating things is the emotional gravity that has largely been absent from Leonard’s earlier works. Perez’s first gambit to steal the money from Denise is actually to hire Virgil (like I said, double- and triple-crosses, and no allegiance save one is solid) to get her drunk and have her sign the papers. The scene is, in a word, heartbreaking. We first meet Denise in Detroit as a miserable drunk, and her transformation to the optimistic artist Ryan encounters in Rochester is dramatic. But with one ill-intentioned, eminently selfish move, Denise is reduced once again to her messy, belligerent former self. Ryan handles this with panache, kicking Virgil out of Denise’s apartment, sobering her up, and leaving with her for Florida the next day, where the two of them can get out from under Perez’s suffocating influence. The halting romance that ensues is balanced on the knife edge between pragmatic and sentimental. It’s a graceful sequence that looks nothing like anything Leonard had previously written. It’s just a lull, though, as Ryan and Denise realize there’s a reckoning waiting for them in Detroit, and it needs to be resolved before they can ever truly settle down. Blood will be shed.
I won’t read a book that starts with a description of the weather.
As my first proper Elmore Leonard review, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the dialogue. It exists on another plane, the one where the characters might as well be speaking lines transcribed directly from a voice recorder planted in some seedy bar on the wrong side of the tracks. I could share any number of exchanges, but I’m partial to this one between Ryan and Virgil, as Ryan prepares to initiate the next part of his plan:
"‘I don’t see you doing much,’ Ryan said. ‘You want something, but I don’t see you breaking your ass especially to get it.’
‘I’m being patient,’ Virgil said, ‘waiting till everybody make up their mind. You want a real drink this time?’
‘No, this is fine.’ Ryan still had half a Coke. He watched Virgil nod to the waitress. She was over at the bar where several black guys were sitting with their hats on, glancing at themselves in the bar mirror as they talked and jived around. ‘What’s this, the hat club?’ Ryan said. ‘There’s some pretty ones, but they can’t touch yours.’
Virgil was looking at him from beneath the slightly, nicely curved brim of his uptown Stetson. ‘I get my money, what’s owed me, I’ll give it to you,’ he said.
‘I’ll take it,’ Ryan said, ‘and everybody’ll be happy. If we can get you to do a little work.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘First, how much we talking about? What you say Bobby owes you?’
‘Half.’
‘Half of what I heard he got is nothing.’
‘No, I’m telling you. Round it off, ten grand,’ Virgil said. ‘Now you tell me, how much we talking about? The whole deal.’"
There’s a rhythm and cadence to all of Leonard’s dialogue – playful, but with the internal logic of really good jazz. It rings true, and unlike a lot of dialogue, it just sounds good when read aloud.
Unknown Man #89 ends, as many of Leonard’s novels do, in a way that can best be termed “cautiously optimistic.” The bad guys get their comeuppance, the good guys get their reward – although it might look different than they thought it would – and the moral of the story, if there is one, seems to be this: “Be careful who you trust.” But this ending resonates more for me than in Leonard’s other books because, for the first time, the main characters have suffered enough for us to want them to be happy.
Read all my reviews at goldstarforrobotboy.net
April 7, 2020
This is one of four stories included in Four Novels of the 1970's. One characteristic that Leonard's stories all share is that they are clever. Jack, a process server, is offered a job finding a person for a Mr. Perez. Fortunately, Jack has a friend in the police force and he finds out the person he is supposed to find is a homicidal maniac and Mr. Perez served time for being an accessory to murder. Jack ups his fee and goes to work. Great characters pop up along the way and, of course, Jack gets into trouble and is danger. Highly recommended.
October 31, 2023
Ryan is a process server turned quasi-PI in unknown man 89. Elmore Leonard always writes great dialogue for his characters and that of Jack Ryan is no different. Complimenting the slick dialogue is a fast paced yet subtly complex narrative centred around a web of schemes and lies. There’s plenty of blood shed yet Ryan somehow manages to come out clean. Highly enjoyable.
October 16, 2022
There’s a part in the middle of the book about alcoholics and AA and it’s too real, I’ve got to think, for it to be anything other than personal. I think it’s why Elmore can do what he does like nobody else: so many parts of it are grounded in real life.
Or, his manifesto for everything, in the words of Ryan:
This was a great one. But when are they not?
See, there was the hard way to do things and there was the easy way. The hard way looked good at the time; in fact, it looked like the only way. But it upset your stomach and could break your knuckles. It produced blind spots that could mess you up and cause pain, not to mention losing your ass. The easy way required thinking, and remaining cool. Not standing-around cool, but authentic genuine cool. Cool when you wanted to smash something or break down a door. No, hold it right there. Think on how to do it the easy way. Then turn the knob gently and the door opens.
Or, his manifesto for everything, in the words of Ryan:
“A friend of mine has a sign on the wall at his office, it says No More Bullshit. And that’s the way I feel, or want to get back to feeling again. I know I can be myself. I don’t have to play a role, put up a front, pretend to be something I’m not. I even listen to what people say now. I can argue without getting mad. If the other person gets mad, that’s his problem. I don’t feel the need to convince everybody I’m right. Somebody said here tonight, ‘I like myself, and it’s good to be able to say that.’”
This was a great one. But when are they not?
October 31, 2015
As usual, Elmore Leonard treats the reader to a fast-moving crime-in-Detroit novel. The main character, Jack Ryan (no relation to Tom Clancy’s character), a process server with no real direction for his life, finds himself falling for an alcoholic widow/heiress beset by vicious con men. His relationship with Lee turns him into something of a knight errant on a mission to save the damsel in distress (and her money) by the bad guys who would also like to see Jack dead. Crackling Elmore Leonard dialogue makes for a delightful dip into the mean underbelly of the author’s favorite Michigan city. Don’t miss it if you like this type of read.
January 2, 2019
This is the sequel to The Big Bounce. Jack Ryan finally finds his niche in life as a process server. One of the best scenes is when Jack tries to serve divorce papers to a gynecologist. The basic premise is a missing persons case involving an investment broker.
December 19, 2008
Got to give it up for the E man, Ehhl-moh Leonard, in particular for these nifty titles. Wouldn't you know it, one of his most provocative -- unknown? & as many as 89? -- draws a reader into one of his very best, my favorite of those I've been through, an early effort (first pub. 1977) more vital & layered. UNKNOWN is a "crime novel" I suppose, though a more specific designation would be the lowlife novel, one in which our moral core is Jack Ryan (an unfortunate name, but Leonard got there well before the pinhead Clancy), an ex-alcoholic process server around the broken bricks of Detroit, or let's say mostly an ex-alcoholic. Ryan does his job as much for the endorphin rush as anything else, & he's not above some less-than-licit missing-persons work on the side, either. In this case the person he's trying to find, & for whom he's taking an under-the-table payment, turns out to be another drunk, not quite ex-. She's part damsel in d., part femme f. The ensuing dangerous-love story achieves a greater humanity than most novels of this ilk, & it features, as well, one of Leonard's most richly ambiguous black folk, namely Virgil, a vengeful yet canny bottom-feeder. Virgil guides us marvelously through this inferno, both when he's against Ryan & when he's with him, & the overall affect never curdles into cuteness, as do some later, more famous Leonards, such as SNATCH. This is a hard dollar: when earned, it satisfies most.
February 26, 2018
اینکتاب را بخوانید تا بفهمید چرا میگویم از خواندن رمان ایرانی هر روز نا امیدتر میشوم. در ایران داستان نویسان از روی مد و محضِ خوشی رفقایشان به کلی از انسان دل بریدهاند و لشگری شکست خورده از ناامیدانند. اما آنطرف با تمام آگاهی ازکثافت و رذالت دنیا همچنان به انسان امیدوارند. برای همین است که عشقهایشان، فراقشان، وصالشان اینچنین جذاب و خواندنی است. رمانِ مرد ناشناس درباره رستگاری است در بی ربطترین داستانِ ممکن. هنر نویسنده همین است که جوانههای عشق و امید را درست درجایی خلق میکند که انتظار ندارید. شما کدام داستان ایرانی را سراغ دارید که قهرمانش لااقل به عشق امیدوار باشد و برای آن مبارزه کند. قهرمانان ما در داستانهای ایرانی، روشنفکرانِ سرخوردهای هستند که حتی تاب فکر کردن به مبارزه را هم ندارند. از همین است که داستانویسان ما مدام بدون فکر و اندیشه به بیراهههای سورئال و فضای وهمی میروند و سرانجام در آن گم میشوند.
پی نوشت: ژانر نویسی و سرگرم کردن خواننده هم که کلا عملی احمقانه است و دون شانشان است که کتابی بنویسند که خواننده یک نفس آن را تا پایان زمین نگذارد.
پی نوشت: ژانر نویسی و سرگرم کردن خواننده هم که کلا عملی احمقانه است و دون شانشان است که کتابی بنویسند که خواننده یک نفس آن را تا پایان زمین نگذارد.
September 19, 2008
When you join the military you only get to bring a few things with you to basic training (toothbrush, razor..etc). I brought this book. I had started reading it during the summer after high school and simply couldn't let going into the Navy stop me from reading it.
This really was one of the first books I chose to read on my own as a young adult. I had read a few other worthwhile things like 'Invisible Man' in high school, but those were still really for school projects, if you know what I mean. This Elmore Leonard book was all for me, as have been all of the other books of his I have read.
I'd have to say that this one was the first of his that demonstrated his attentive ear as to how people actually speak. Try it yourself sometime, it's harder than he makes it look!
This really was one of the first books I chose to read on my own as a young adult. I had read a few other worthwhile things like 'Invisible Man' in high school, but those were still really for school projects, if you know what I mean. This Elmore Leonard book was all for me, as have been all of the other books of his I have read.
I'd have to say that this one was the first of his that demonstrated his attentive ear as to how people actually speak. Try it yourself sometime, it's harder than he makes it look!
November 14, 2014
This crime novel shows further development in Leonard's writing style. This book revives one of his earlier characters from The Big Bounce, Jack Ryan, as a Detroit-based process server that searches for a man that has property coming to him that he is unaware of. The story has many twists and turns and ends up with a clever Ryan coming out ahead in the end. I was struck by a new technique that had not appeared in any earlier Leonard novels. He had two simultaneous threads going in the story and brought one to a cliffhanger at the end of the chapter and then followed it up with a chapter dedicated to the other story thread. I have seen other writers use this technique effectively as Leonard does in this work. Overall, it was an enjoyable read.
August 5, 2016
a weird leonard novel that, like a lot of his stuff, blurs the line between who exactly the bad guy is by presenting everything in a gray area. i mean, we are locked in on jack ryan and rooting for him, but the world that surrounds him is immoral and life doesnt seem to mean much. this book is a peculiarity in that halfway through it takes a hard turn away from being a crime novel and starts to become an AA novel, with its morality tied up in the characters and their struggles with addiction, almost presenting the steps toward sobriety as a vacation from the high pressure world of crime until that world comes crashing back it. this is interesting, but carries a muddied message with it and makes the plot uneven, even though it does complicate things in a compelling manner.
April 12, 2011
Between 3-4 stars. I love Elmore Leonard but he has this frustrating habit of introducing one or two characters and/or one or two plot points too many. Thus, a neat thriller like this one becomes too muddled in the middle and while the end shakes out in an exciting manner, it makes it difficult to appreciate. I liked this book, wanted to really like it but, much like some of his works, it tries to do too much.
December 11, 2007
I think this is his best, though with him, it's hard to tell. He does it without letting you see him sweat.
November 7, 2008
One of Elmore Leonard's best. Great "trashy detective fiction," which is one of my favorite genres. A perfect snapshot of Detroit during the Superfly Seventies.
March 24, 2011
Might be the best of Leonard's 70s Detroit novels.
December 14, 2014
A fast paced crime story, that is smooth like a straight up vodka martini.
June 13, 2017
Great story. A little dated. Was hard to put down.
March 10, 2021
4*
Just as good, on second reading.
Just as good, on second reading.
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