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Cundo Rey #1
La Brava
Photographer Joe LaBrava specialises in capturing the soul of Miami's street life & since he used to do dirty jobs for the government, he understands his subject very well. So when his friend Maury enlists his help to sort out a problem with an ex-film star, Joe is more than happy to help.
283 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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3832 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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November 28, 2025
IL BACIO DELLA DONNA RAGNO
Ocean Drive a South Miami Beach.
Aveva dodici anni la prima volta che l’ha vista: era seduto su una poltrona in platea, e lei era lì, sul grande schermo. Lui si è innamorato subito, lei è stata il suo primo amore.
Jean era una star.
Non una stella di prima grandezza, più brava che famosa, il primo nome femminile in cartellone non era mail suo: ma il secondo sì. Antagonista, le succedeva qualche volta di uccidere il cattivo, di avere una storia col protagonista, anche con Robert Mitchum, Robert Taylor, Victore Mature...
Era una stella d’argento, non d’oro: anche perché recitava in film che in bianco e nero venivano meglio, avevano più atmosfera, noir. L’argento si nota di più in b&w.
Jean era una donna ragno.
E lui ha visto tutti i film che lei ha fatto, una dozzina nel giro di qualche anno, li conosce a memoria.
Un momento di Miami Vice. La serie andò in onda dal 1984 al 1989, cinque stagioni per un totale di 111 episodi. Prodotta da Michael Mann, che ha poi diretto il remake cinematografico.
Venticinque anni dopo la incontra, la conosce. L’amore si riaccende, l’amore di un bambino è adesso quello di un adulto di 37 anni, ex agente segreto, ex guardia del corpo di presidenti e first lady, ora fotografo. È il sogno di sempre che si realizza.
Vivono entrambi a South Miami Beach, che non è più quella degli anni d’oro. Sono entrambi residenti in un vecchio albergo, il Della Robbia.
E questa volta, questa volta l’incontro è vero, è reciproco, e anche lei s’innamora.
O, almeno, così sembra.
Eccoli, proprio loro: Don Johnson/James "Sonny" Crockett e Philip Michael Thomas/Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs. T-shirt Armani, mocassini senza calze, Ferrari bianca, motoscafo come abitazione, alligatore come pet, MTV music…
Solo che Jean è troppo abituata a recitare. E forse sta ancora cercando il suo ruolo da protagonista. E anche nella vita la parte di donna ragno le viene bene.
Ma si sceglie dei comprimari non all’altezza: un provinciale biondo e belloccio di dubbia intelligenza, e un marielito, che vorrebbe essere Tony Montana, solo che balla a gogo per insoddisfatte mature signore sposate pur di racimolare duecento dollari in banconote che le donne gli infilano negli slip leopardati, e Tony Montana non lo farebbe mai, Tony Montana non approverebbe.
South Beach
A South Miami Beach da quando sono arrivati i marielitos, centoventicinquemila, molti con precedenti penali, molti ex ospiti delle prigioni di Fidel, a South Miami hanno dovuto comprare vecchi camion frigorifero della Burger King per conservare i cadaveri, i profughi si ammazzano anche tra di loro, e l’obitorio non ha più spazio.
Al Pacino è Tony Montana nel remake di “Scarface” del 1983 firmato da Brian De Palma. Steven Bauer interpreta l’amico Manny. Tony e Manny sono due marielitos, due dei 125.000 cubani partiti dal porto di Mariel tra il 15 aprile e il 31 ottobre 1980, approdati tutti nel sud della Florida. L'apparizione di Michelle Pfeiffer nel suo primo ruolo importante mi tolse il fiato.
Questa volta, comunque, non è un film: non dura solo un’ora e mezzo chiusa dalla parola fine…
Atmosfera che si taglia col coltello. Dialogo così vivo da portare il lettore direttamente per le strade della Florida. Trama complessa ben costruita e ben sviluppata, gustosa oltre ogni dire.
Il miglior Leonard che ho letto finora.
La location della celebre scena con la sega elettrica in “Scarface”.
PS
Il titolo originale è semplicemente il cognome del protagonista, il fotografo ex agente segreto: LaBrava. Pubblicato nel 1983, l’anno dello “Scarface” di Pacino e De Palma, l’anno prima che cominciasse in televisione la serie “Miami Vice”.
Ocean Drive a South Miami Beach.
Aveva dodici anni la prima volta che l’ha vista: era seduto su una poltrona in platea, e lei era lì, sul grande schermo. Lui si è innamorato subito, lei è stata il suo primo amore.
Jean era una star.
Non una stella di prima grandezza, più brava che famosa, il primo nome femminile in cartellone non era mail suo: ma il secondo sì. Antagonista, le succedeva qualche volta di uccidere il cattivo, di avere una storia col protagonista, anche con Robert Mitchum, Robert Taylor, Victore Mature...
Era una stella d’argento, non d’oro: anche perché recitava in film che in bianco e nero venivano meglio, avevano più atmosfera, noir. L’argento si nota di più in b&w.
Jean era una donna ragno.
E lui ha visto tutti i film che lei ha fatto, una dozzina nel giro di qualche anno, li conosce a memoria.
Un momento di Miami Vice. La serie andò in onda dal 1984 al 1989, cinque stagioni per un totale di 111 episodi. Prodotta da Michael Mann, che ha poi diretto il remake cinematografico.
Venticinque anni dopo la incontra, la conosce. L’amore si riaccende, l’amore di un bambino è adesso quello di un adulto di 37 anni, ex agente segreto, ex guardia del corpo di presidenti e first lady, ora fotografo. È il sogno di sempre che si realizza.
Vivono entrambi a South Miami Beach, che non è più quella degli anni d’oro. Sono entrambi residenti in un vecchio albergo, il Della Robbia.
E questa volta, questa volta l’incontro è vero, è reciproco, e anche lei s’innamora.
O, almeno, così sembra.
Eccoli, proprio loro: Don Johnson/James "Sonny" Crockett e Philip Michael Thomas/Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs. T-shirt Armani, mocassini senza calze, Ferrari bianca, motoscafo come abitazione, alligatore come pet, MTV music…
Solo che Jean è troppo abituata a recitare. E forse sta ancora cercando il suo ruolo da protagonista. E anche nella vita la parte di donna ragno le viene bene.
Ma si sceglie dei comprimari non all’altezza: un provinciale biondo e belloccio di dubbia intelligenza, e un marielito, che vorrebbe essere Tony Montana, solo che balla a gogo per insoddisfatte mature signore sposate pur di racimolare duecento dollari in banconote che le donne gli infilano negli slip leopardati, e Tony Montana non lo farebbe mai, Tony Montana non approverebbe.
South Beach
A South Miami Beach da quando sono arrivati i marielitos, centoventicinquemila, molti con precedenti penali, molti ex ospiti delle prigioni di Fidel, a South Miami hanno dovuto comprare vecchi camion frigorifero della Burger King per conservare i cadaveri, i profughi si ammazzano anche tra di loro, e l’obitorio non ha più spazio.
Al Pacino è Tony Montana nel remake di “Scarface” del 1983 firmato da Brian De Palma. Steven Bauer interpreta l’amico Manny. Tony e Manny sono due marielitos, due dei 125.000 cubani partiti dal porto di Mariel tra il 15 aprile e il 31 ottobre 1980, approdati tutti nel sud della Florida. L'apparizione di Michelle Pfeiffer nel suo primo ruolo importante mi tolse il fiato.
Questa volta, comunque, non è un film: non dura solo un’ora e mezzo chiusa dalla parola fine…
Atmosfera che si taglia col coltello. Dialogo così vivo da portare il lettore direttamente per le strade della Florida. Trama complessa ben costruita e ben sviluppata, gustosa oltre ogni dire.
Il miglior Leonard che ho letto finora.
La location della celebre scena con la sega elettrica in “Scarface”.
PS
Il titolo originale è semplicemente il cognome del protagonista, il fotografo ex agente segreto: LaBrava. Pubblicato nel 1983, l’anno dello “Scarface” di Pacino e De Palma, l’anno prima che cominciasse in televisione la serie “Miami Vice”.
September 4, 2022
Published in 1983, this novel falls somewhere in the middle of Leonard's work, at least for me--a fun read, but not among his best efforts. Part of my reaction may be based on the fact that this book is set in South Florida and I have always thought that Leonard's Detroit books were generally better than the Florida ones. Also, while the characters and the dialogue are good, the characters don't seem to measure up to some of Leonard's more inspired creations and the dialogue seems to be not nearly as snappy.
On the plus side, Leonard does evoke a great sense of Miami Beach in the early 1980s, a seedy, tawdry, down-at-the-heels resort community that has clearly seen better days, populated largely by a lot of elderly people who have also clearly seen better days. And, as in the Casablanca of 1941, there are vultures, vultures everywhere.
Into this setting, Leonard drops a former Secret Service agent named Joe LaBrava, an aging movie star named Jean Shaw, an even more elderly hotel owner named Maurice Zola, and a supporting cast of pretty quirky characters. LaBrava is now working as a freelance photographer, focusing on the street life of Miami and attempting to capture the faces of people who interest him. As a boy of twelve, he fell in love with Jean Shaw in the darkness of his neighborhood movie theater, and he is stunned to recognize her when Maurice prevails upon him to help rescue the woman, whom he describes only as a "good friend" of his, from a county holding center where she's been taken on a charge of drunk and disorderly behavior.
LaBrava effects the rescue, much to the consternation of a redneck rent-a-cop named Richard Nobles who is also trying to take custody of Shaw and who now feels that he has a score to settle with LaBrava. Nobles will spend much of the rest of the book attempting to do so. Before long, a very complicated kidnapping plot is hatched, with Jean Shaw as the intended victim and LaBrava will step in to try to derail it. It's a fun story, although most readers will see the payoff coming from miles away. It's not quite as crisp and focused as most other E.L. novels and, as I said, I did not find the characters nearly as compelling. Still a fun way to spend an afternoon out on the deck.
On the plus side, Leonard does evoke a great sense of Miami Beach in the early 1980s, a seedy, tawdry, down-at-the-heels resort community that has clearly seen better days, populated largely by a lot of elderly people who have also clearly seen better days. And, as in the Casablanca of 1941, there are vultures, vultures everywhere.
Into this setting, Leonard drops a former Secret Service agent named Joe LaBrava, an aging movie star named Jean Shaw, an even more elderly hotel owner named Maurice Zola, and a supporting cast of pretty quirky characters. LaBrava is now working as a freelance photographer, focusing on the street life of Miami and attempting to capture the faces of people who interest him. As a boy of twelve, he fell in love with Jean Shaw in the darkness of his neighborhood movie theater, and he is stunned to recognize her when Maurice prevails upon him to help rescue the woman, whom he describes only as a "good friend" of his, from a county holding center where she's been taken on a charge of drunk and disorderly behavior.
LaBrava effects the rescue, much to the consternation of a redneck rent-a-cop named Richard Nobles who is also trying to take custody of Shaw and who now feels that he has a score to settle with LaBrava. Nobles will spend much of the rest of the book attempting to do so. Before long, a very complicated kidnapping plot is hatched, with Jean Shaw as the intended victim and LaBrava will step in to try to derail it. It's a fun story, although most readers will see the payoff coming from miles away. It's not quite as crisp and focused as most other E.L. novels and, as I said, I did not find the characters nearly as compelling. Still a fun way to spend an afternoon out on the deck.
October 20, 2011
Former Secret Service agent Joe LaBrava meets an actress he fell in love with at age twelve. Now she's being blackmailed by a redneck and his Cuban partner. Or is she...? Can LaBrava get to the bottom of things before he winds up dead?
When it comes to Elmore Leonard books, they're either awesome or just okay. This one is definitely closer to okay.
The plot was pretty good. LaBrava, a photographer and former FBI man, gets entangled with Jean Shaw, an actress he's pined over for years and a blackmail scheme. As always with Leonard, the dialogue and machinations were the stars of the show. Leonard paints a vivid picture of Florida's sleazy underbelly. The characters of LaBrava, Franny, Richie, and Rey were all pretty well rounded. I thought I had the ending figured out but it went in a slightly different direction.
It wasn't a great Elmore Leonard because everything felt a little too easy. I also thought the twist was tipped a little too early. Once I knew all the players in the blackmail game, I was ready for it to be over.
Still, even a mediocre Elmore Leonard is still pretty good. I liked it but I didn't love it.
When it comes to Elmore Leonard books, they're either awesome or just okay. This one is definitely closer to okay.
The plot was pretty good. LaBrava, a photographer and former FBI man, gets entangled with Jean Shaw, an actress he's pined over for years and a blackmail scheme. As always with Leonard, the dialogue and machinations were the stars of the show. Leonard paints a vivid picture of Florida's sleazy underbelly. The characters of LaBrava, Franny, Richie, and Rey were all pretty well rounded. I thought I had the ending figured out but it went in a slightly different direction.
It wasn't a great Elmore Leonard because everything felt a little too easy. I also thought the twist was tipped a little too early. Once I knew all the players in the blackmail game, I was ready for it to be over.
Still, even a mediocre Elmore Leonard is still pretty good. I liked it but I didn't love it.
October 18, 2014
Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite writers, but my experience with his work is that it's either dynamite or dud. With forty-five novels and at least forty-two short stories to his credit, not every one of Dutch's enterprises was going to be a success. I'll never abandon Leonard because his dialogue is so good and he almost always offers a twist to his capers, but his 1983 novel LaBrava just didn't draw me in.
Published before Elmore Leonard began sort of parodying Elmore Leonard to great success with novels like Get Shorty, LaBrava appeared on paperback racks between Stick and Glitz when the author was still firmly operating in the territory of hardboiled pulp fiction ("She'd Do Anything For A Man ... Even Get Him Killed" promises the paperback cover). Set entirely in seedy South Miami Beach, Leonard picks promising real estate and hangs a great handle on his protagonist, Joe LaBrava.
LaBrava is an ex-Secret Service agent who developed a love of photography while engaged in surveillance work for the feds. He quit his job and drifted down to south Florida, where his observational skill and ability to size up characters lent itself to documenting street life as a freelance photographer. LaBrava lives and works out of the Della Robbia Hotel, a fading jewel owned and operated by his best friend, an eighty-year-old former bookie named Maurice Zola.
The photographer is dragged by Maurice to a county mental health center where one of the old man's friends has been interned after throwing a glass at a police car. Instructed to take photos of Maurice's friend as a wakeup call for her to get help, LaBrava discovers the drunk is Jean Shaw, a fifty-year-old former silver screen siren who's hit the bottom of the barrel.
LaBrava has been smitten with Shaw since he saw her at the picture show as a boy. He discovers that the former star is in trouble with a private security guard named Richard Nobles, a swamp rat engaged in a variety of dumb criminal schemes. Abetting Nobles -- or maybe it's the other way around -- is an exotic dancer named Cundo Rey, one of Fidel Castro's marielitos who was released from a Cuban prison and shipped out to Florida to become Uncle Sam's headache.
The photographer and the movie star become lovers and in between watching and talking about old movies, LaBrava comes to Jean's aid when Nobles ensnares the actress in an extortion plot. This being an Elmore Leonard novel, nothing is what it appears to be.
One of the things I actually liked about LaBrava was how unremarkable all of the characters were. Through most of the story, I had my doubts that LaBrava, Jean or Nobles could tie their own shoelaces, much less handle themselves in a rough situation.
That said, there were things that bugged me:
-- The novel shoots out of the gate with a lot of dialogue, a lot of mundane dialogue, and takes a while to add up to ... not a whole lot. A blackmail scheme run by near-idiots is not exactly a compelling plot.
-- The fake movie star Jean Shaw bored me. While I could understand someone being smitten with Patricia Neal and being beside himself hanging out with Patricia Neal, "Jean Shaw" is a fabrication that just did not interest me in the least. So many paragraphs are devoted to her fake roles and faux movies and none of it is as clever or as compelling as I think Leonard hoped it would be.
-- This is the first Elmore Leonard novel I've read where I didn't feel the need to stop reading and scribble one of his descriptions. Whether you want to call it "wit", "panache" or "hot sauce", there's a noticable lack of it here.
LaBrava perks up with the appearance of a cosmetics peddler named Franny Kaufman, whose clientele of old Yiddish ladies in South Miami Beach puts her in the same milieu as LaBrava. The two strike up a friendship that slowly becomes much more than that, and while I never believed the protagonist's attraction to the fake movie star, the way Leonard describes Franny makes it impossible not to fall for her:
LaBrava checked his mail slot on the wall behind the registration desk. Nothing. Good. He turned to see the girl coming across the lobby. Weird hair; it looked tribal the way it was almost flat on top, parted in the middle and frizzed way out on the sides. Pretty girl though, behind big round tinted glasses. She said, "Hi. You don't work here, do you?" Violet eyes. Some freckles. Smart-looking Jewish girl.
I think I'm in love. I think Leonard might've been too, and it's too bad that Franny doesn't figure into the plot.
Leonard admitted that when researching bail bondsmen for Rum Punch, he realized that the main character wasn't that guy, but a stewardess caught in the middle. I had the same feeling here. A Spring Song girl working the ruins of South Miami Beach sounds like someone who'd get herself caught in the middle of something interesting. A photographer and a fake movie star? Not so much.
Published before Elmore Leonard began sort of parodying Elmore Leonard to great success with novels like Get Shorty, LaBrava appeared on paperback racks between Stick and Glitz when the author was still firmly operating in the territory of hardboiled pulp fiction ("She'd Do Anything For A Man ... Even Get Him Killed" promises the paperback cover). Set entirely in seedy South Miami Beach, Leonard picks promising real estate and hangs a great handle on his protagonist, Joe LaBrava.
LaBrava is an ex-Secret Service agent who developed a love of photography while engaged in surveillance work for the feds. He quit his job and drifted down to south Florida, where his observational skill and ability to size up characters lent itself to documenting street life as a freelance photographer. LaBrava lives and works out of the Della Robbia Hotel, a fading jewel owned and operated by his best friend, an eighty-year-old former bookie named Maurice Zola.
The photographer is dragged by Maurice to a county mental health center where one of the old man's friends has been interned after throwing a glass at a police car. Instructed to take photos of Maurice's friend as a wakeup call for her to get help, LaBrava discovers the drunk is Jean Shaw, a fifty-year-old former silver screen siren who's hit the bottom of the barrel.
LaBrava has been smitten with Shaw since he saw her at the picture show as a boy. He discovers that the former star is in trouble with a private security guard named Richard Nobles, a swamp rat engaged in a variety of dumb criminal schemes. Abetting Nobles -- or maybe it's the other way around -- is an exotic dancer named Cundo Rey, one of Fidel Castro's marielitos who was released from a Cuban prison and shipped out to Florida to become Uncle Sam's headache.
The photographer and the movie star become lovers and in between watching and talking about old movies, LaBrava comes to Jean's aid when Nobles ensnares the actress in an extortion plot. This being an Elmore Leonard novel, nothing is what it appears to be.
One of the things I actually liked about LaBrava was how unremarkable all of the characters were. Through most of the story, I had my doubts that LaBrava, Jean or Nobles could tie their own shoelaces, much less handle themselves in a rough situation.
That said, there were things that bugged me:
-- The novel shoots out of the gate with a lot of dialogue, a lot of mundane dialogue, and takes a while to add up to ... not a whole lot. A blackmail scheme run by near-idiots is not exactly a compelling plot.
-- The fake movie star Jean Shaw bored me. While I could understand someone being smitten with Patricia Neal and being beside himself hanging out with Patricia Neal, "Jean Shaw" is a fabrication that just did not interest me in the least. So many paragraphs are devoted to her fake roles and faux movies and none of it is as clever or as compelling as I think Leonard hoped it would be.
-- This is the first Elmore Leonard novel I've read where I didn't feel the need to stop reading and scribble one of his descriptions. Whether you want to call it "wit", "panache" or "hot sauce", there's a noticable lack of it here.
LaBrava perks up with the appearance of a cosmetics peddler named Franny Kaufman, whose clientele of old Yiddish ladies in South Miami Beach puts her in the same milieu as LaBrava. The two strike up a friendship that slowly becomes much more than that, and while I never believed the protagonist's attraction to the fake movie star, the way Leonard describes Franny makes it impossible not to fall for her:
LaBrava checked his mail slot on the wall behind the registration desk. Nothing. Good. He turned to see the girl coming across the lobby. Weird hair; it looked tribal the way it was almost flat on top, parted in the middle and frizzed way out on the sides. Pretty girl though, behind big round tinted glasses. She said, "Hi. You don't work here, do you?" Violet eyes. Some freckles. Smart-looking Jewish girl.
I think I'm in love. I think Leonard might've been too, and it's too bad that Franny doesn't figure into the plot.
Leonard admitted that when researching bail bondsmen for Rum Punch, he realized that the main character wasn't that guy, but a stewardess caught in the middle. I had the same feeling here. A Spring Song girl working the ruins of South Miami Beach sounds like someone who'd get herself caught in the middle of something interesting. A photographer and a fake movie star? Not so much.
November 15, 2013
I bought this today at the Out of the Closet thrift store on Biscayne, and once I got home and opened it up to read, discovered that it's an autographed copy! I'm irrationally thrilled by this. There's something so cool about finding out that even though I never managed to meet him, I now have a book with his signature in it. I actually don't know why that's cool and exciting to me, I guess because Leonard's one of those writers I would've liked to have met but obviously now I never will, and this seems like a decent consolation?
Also cool and exciting: reading an Elmore Leonard novel set in Miami now that I live here and know where everything is! AND, also awesome... one of this book's early scenes is set in a detox and features a hot, tough social servicey, substance abuse counselor-type chick... wow! So I guess I'll quit with this I-just-started-it non-review and get back to reading.
---
This is a really fun one with a portrait-of-the-artist twist: a photographer protagonist who, like the author, is enchanted by the colorful characters of super seedy early-eighties Miami Beach. It's impossible to read LaBrava lurking around South Beach's crumbling deco hotels in his pineapple-print shirt, documenting its ancient Jewish ladies and marielitos, without imagining Leonard doing the same thing with his notebook instead of a Leica.
Not perfectly polished, but never a dull moment and flawless in its inimitable atmosphere and style. An awesome Miami novel with Leonard's trademark cast of characters that should be too inventive and bizarre to come off as human as they do, and a plot so enjoyable you don't care if it makes any sense. One thing I love about Leonard is that his books aren't hard-boiled at all and his tough guys are anything but cynical: these novels are all love stories, so warm-blooded they'd be sappy if they weren't so damn cool.
Elmore Leonard is dead. Long live Elmore Leonard!
Also cool and exciting: reading an Elmore Leonard novel set in Miami now that I live here and know where everything is! AND, also awesome... one of this book's early scenes is set in a detox and features a hot, tough social servicey, substance abuse counselor-type chick... wow! So I guess I'll quit with this I-just-started-it non-review and get back to reading.
---
This is a really fun one with a portrait-of-the-artist twist: a photographer protagonist who, like the author, is enchanted by the colorful characters of super seedy early-eighties Miami Beach. It's impossible to read LaBrava lurking around South Beach's crumbling deco hotels in his pineapple-print shirt, documenting its ancient Jewish ladies and marielitos, without imagining Leonard doing the same thing with his notebook instead of a Leica.
Not perfectly polished, but never a dull moment and flawless in its inimitable atmosphere and style. An awesome Miami novel with Leonard's trademark cast of characters that should be too inventive and bizarre to come off as human as they do, and a plot so enjoyable you don't care if it makes any sense. One thing I love about Leonard is that his books aren't hard-boiled at all and his tough guys are anything but cynical: these novels are all love stories, so warm-blooded they'd be sappy if they weren't so damn cool.
Elmore Leonard is dead. Long live Elmore Leonard!
October 26, 2019
Superb.
A Noir about a former Film Noir starlet.
I don't have time to review this tonight.
I'll review this in 2 and 1/2 weeks or little longer.
Gotta get up early tomorrow morning, drink a few cups of coffee, eat a slice of toast.
Taking a long drive down South with my wife.
Hit a few used bookstores, tour Fame Studios and 3614 Jackson Highway Muscle Shoals Studio, my wife'll be taking a bunch of photographs along the way.
Photographs of churches, bridges, architectural oddities, cemeteries she'll convert to paintings later.
About this book - near the end, Elmore Leonard misquotes my favorite line from my favorite Film Noir, Out Of The Past with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer:
Kathie : I don't want to die.
Jeff : Neither do I, baby, but if I have to die, I'm gonna die last.
To be continued...
A Noir about a former Film Noir starlet.
I don't have time to review this tonight.
I'll review this in 2 and 1/2 weeks or little longer.
Gotta get up early tomorrow morning, drink a few cups of coffee, eat a slice of toast.
Taking a long drive down South with my wife.
Hit a few used bookstores, tour Fame Studios and 3614 Jackson Highway Muscle Shoals Studio, my wife'll be taking a bunch of photographs along the way.
Photographs of churches, bridges, architectural oddities, cemeteries she'll convert to paintings later.
About this book - near the end, Elmore Leonard misquotes my favorite line from my favorite Film Noir, Out Of The Past with Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer:
"What were you in for?"
"I shot a Russian guy."
"Just trying to hustle a buck, uh?"
"Man, is tough sometime. You got to think, is somebody want to kill me? You never know."
LaBrava, nodding, had to agree. "As Robert Mitchum once said, "'I don't want to die, but if I do I'm gonna die last.'"
The Cuban with the cat whiskers painted on his face stared at him and said, "Who's Robber Mitchum?"
The actual line from the movie is:
Kathie : I don't want to die.
Jeff : Neither do I, baby, but if I have to die, I'm gonna die last.
To be continued...
June 9, 2025
[9/10]
“She gets into these situations, she seems to have a knack for it.”
“I thought she was smarter than that.”
“She’s smart. But like I’ve said, Joe, you gotta remember she was a movie star. Movie stars are different than you and I.”
Freelance photographer Joe LaBrava is taking it easy in South Florida, sleeping late, enjoying the sun, eating good food, watching the people pass by... watching very carefully!
Joe can’t help it, it’s a sort of professional handicap that he can’t shake loose even when he is relaxing and adopting the lifestyle of a beach bum – complete with crazy tropical pattern shirts, a laidback attitude and an apparent aversion to hard work.
“Yeah, he used to have style,” Maurice said. “But now, he quit getting his hair cut at the barbershop, dresses very casual. But you watch him, Joe walks down the street he knows everything that’s going on. He picks faces out of the crowd, faces that interest him. It’s a habit, he can’t quit doing it.”
LaBrava is quite talented at street photography, in particular people portraits. His past training, as an IRS inspector and as a Secret Service Agent, makes sure Joe notices things and is quick in judging people and threats.
He stays in the hotel owned by his friend and self-appointed artistic agent Maurice, an old timer now in the eight decade of life, who talks incessantly about the good old times of the Mob in the 1930s and 1940s. Maurice asks Joe for help in dealing with his personal friend, former Hollywood diva Jean Shaw, who was just arrested by South Florida police for drunk and disorderly conduct. What Maurice and Jean don’t know is that Joe LaBrava was infatuated with the femme fatale screen persona of the star when he was a twelve year old boy. He used to watch her films repeatedly, and he still remembers every line she delivered.
He is now meeting his former silver screen idol in the flesh!
Oh, boy! she is still a hot piece of trouble in high heels.
“Jean, you’re so good you could act your way out of a safe deposit box.”
>>><<<>>><<<
I liked all the thrillers of Elmore Leonard that I picked up in the past, but for some reason I put his list on the back-burner, distracted by the avalanche of new shiny crime books that keep landing on my shelves. Maybe this distance put me in a better disposition for the current crime caper, but most probably it is the fact that La Brava is actually one of the best examples of his style and of his sly sense of humour. Everything comes together beautifully in this yarn: from the machine-gun rhythm of the dialogue, to the quirky set of characters, the references to classic cinema and hard-boiled pulps, the local colour, the ironic twists and turns of the plot, the sudden bursts of graphic violence.
I feel the book is both a homage and a commentary on the tropes of film noir and classic crime, delivered with Leonard’s signature flair for natural dialogue and tight writing that made most of his novels almost custom made for a movie adaptation.
“See, what I’m doing, I’m trying to stay ahead of the guy, be ready for it when it comes.”
“Be ready for what?”
“I don’t know, but all my training and experience tells me something’s gonna happen”
I could continue to describe the plot, in particular the main players, but I think a new reader would benefit greatly from going in with as little advance notice as possible about the action. It is worth noting though that the narration alternates between the good guys [Joe, Maurice, Jean] and the bad guys [Richard Nobles, an ex-cop with an inflated ego and an exaggerated good opinion of his own intelligence, and Cundo Rey, a cold-blooded killer who has just landed from a Cuban prison in the Marielito boatlift]. I liked how the dialogue style changes quite dramatically depending on the voices participating.
Even the walk-in characters and the humorous or romantic side characters are just as carefully constructed and given a custom voice / lines.
“To feel my loins consumed by a scorching torrent of liquid fire? It wasn’t bad.” [Franny the perfume seller in a post-coital conversation]
Local colour comes in the shape of Maurice reminiscences from the good old gangster days, LaBrava and Jean discussing old movies and playing games of ‘guess the movie quote’, homeless people and stressed social services nurses, snuff sticks, drug addicts and gun smuggling, commentary on the architectural style of old hotels and the merits of various famous photographers and more.
Yet these tidbits of trivia are almost lost in the rush to turn the page and find out what happens next, by design on the part of the author as we can find out in the next section.
>>><<<>>><<<
If It Sounds Like Writing, Rewrite It.
The extras included in my edition after the final page add a half-star to what was already a solid and entertaining thriller. They include a famous essay by Elmore Leonard about the 10 Rules a Crime Writer Must Know, delivered with his dry wit from the pulpit of his stack of best-selling records, and a fun interview with Martin Amis about ‘The Dickens of Detroit’ that was even funnier than the actual book.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip
Amis and Leonard discuss the start of E.L.’s writing career, mostly with westerns, the habits and the quirks of the successful writer and the need for a solid sense of humour in a candid and relaxed way that lifts a little the veil of mystery over the creative process, helping us understand the nuts and bolts that make the narrative engine run smoothly.
The reason I’ve been able to sell all my books is because they look like they’re easy to shoot. They’re written in scenes, and the stories move through dialogue.
It’s easy to choose my final remark, because I firmly believe myself that when an author has fun and loves what he is doing, his readers have only to gain.
And then I think, “I must have the best job in the world.” I don’t look at this as work. I don’t look at it as any kind of test, any kind of proof of what I can do. I have a good time.
La Brava won the Edgar Award in 1984 for best novel.
“She gets into these situations, she seems to have a knack for it.”
“I thought she was smarter than that.”
“She’s smart. But like I’ve said, Joe, you gotta remember she was a movie star. Movie stars are different than you and I.”
Freelance photographer Joe LaBrava is taking it easy in South Florida, sleeping late, enjoying the sun, eating good food, watching the people pass by... watching very carefully!
Joe can’t help it, it’s a sort of professional handicap that he can’t shake loose even when he is relaxing and adopting the lifestyle of a beach bum – complete with crazy tropical pattern shirts, a laidback attitude and an apparent aversion to hard work.
“Yeah, he used to have style,” Maurice said. “But now, he quit getting his hair cut at the barbershop, dresses very casual. But you watch him, Joe walks down the street he knows everything that’s going on. He picks faces out of the crowd, faces that interest him. It’s a habit, he can’t quit doing it.”
LaBrava is quite talented at street photography, in particular people portraits. His past training, as an IRS inspector and as a Secret Service Agent, makes sure Joe notices things and is quick in judging people and threats.
He stays in the hotel owned by his friend and self-appointed artistic agent Maurice, an old timer now in the eight decade of life, who talks incessantly about the good old times of the Mob in the 1930s and 1940s. Maurice asks Joe for help in dealing with his personal friend, former Hollywood diva Jean Shaw, who was just arrested by South Florida police for drunk and disorderly conduct. What Maurice and Jean don’t know is that Joe LaBrava was infatuated with the femme fatale screen persona of the star when he was a twelve year old boy. He used to watch her films repeatedly, and he still remembers every line she delivered.
He is now meeting his former silver screen idol in the flesh!
Oh, boy! she is still a hot piece of trouble in high heels.
“Jean, you’re so good you could act your way out of a safe deposit box.”
>>><<<>>><<<
I liked all the thrillers of Elmore Leonard that I picked up in the past, but for some reason I put his list on the back-burner, distracted by the avalanche of new shiny crime books that keep landing on my shelves. Maybe this distance put me in a better disposition for the current crime caper, but most probably it is the fact that La Brava is actually one of the best examples of his style and of his sly sense of humour. Everything comes together beautifully in this yarn: from the machine-gun rhythm of the dialogue, to the quirky set of characters, the references to classic cinema and hard-boiled pulps, the local colour, the ironic twists and turns of the plot, the sudden bursts of graphic violence.
I feel the book is both a homage and a commentary on the tropes of film noir and classic crime, delivered with Leonard’s signature flair for natural dialogue and tight writing that made most of his novels almost custom made for a movie adaptation.
“See, what I’m doing, I’m trying to stay ahead of the guy, be ready for it when it comes.”
“Be ready for what?”
“I don’t know, but all my training and experience tells me something’s gonna happen”
I could continue to describe the plot, in particular the main players, but I think a new reader would benefit greatly from going in with as little advance notice as possible about the action. It is worth noting though that the narration alternates between the good guys [Joe, Maurice, Jean] and the bad guys [Richard Nobles, an ex-cop with an inflated ego and an exaggerated good opinion of his own intelligence, and Cundo Rey, a cold-blooded killer who has just landed from a Cuban prison in the Marielito boatlift]. I liked how the dialogue style changes quite dramatically depending on the voices participating.
Even the walk-in characters and the humorous or romantic side characters are just as carefully constructed and given a custom voice / lines.
“To feel my loins consumed by a scorching torrent of liquid fire? It wasn’t bad.” [Franny the perfume seller in a post-coital conversation]
Local colour comes in the shape of Maurice reminiscences from the good old gangster days, LaBrava and Jean discussing old movies and playing games of ‘guess the movie quote’, homeless people and stressed social services nurses, snuff sticks, drug addicts and gun smuggling, commentary on the architectural style of old hotels and the merits of various famous photographers and more.
Yet these tidbits of trivia are almost lost in the rush to turn the page and find out what happens next, by design on the part of the author as we can find out in the next section.
>>><<<>>><<<
If It Sounds Like Writing, Rewrite It.
The extras included in my edition after the final page add a half-star to what was already a solid and entertaining thriller. They include a famous essay by Elmore Leonard about the 10 Rules a Crime Writer Must Know, delivered with his dry wit from the pulpit of his stack of best-selling records, and a fun interview with Martin Amis about ‘The Dickens of Detroit’ that was even funnier than the actual book.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip
Amis and Leonard discuss the start of E.L.’s writing career, mostly with westerns, the habits and the quirks of the successful writer and the need for a solid sense of humour in a candid and relaxed way that lifts a little the veil of mystery over the creative process, helping us understand the nuts and bolts that make the narrative engine run smoothly.
The reason I’ve been able to sell all my books is because they look like they’re easy to shoot. They’re written in scenes, and the stories move through dialogue.
It’s easy to choose my final remark, because I firmly believe myself that when an author has fun and loves what he is doing, his readers have only to gain.
And then I think, “I must have the best job in the world.” I don’t look at this as work. I don’t look at it as any kind of test, any kind of proof of what I can do. I have a good time.
La Brava won the Edgar Award in 1984 for best novel.
March 22, 2017
She liked them because working with professionals brought out the best in you, you could count on them for cues, sometimes inspiration. Whereas amateurs could ruin your concentration and timing, make you look awkward.
A superbly evoked South Beach setting, a compellingly cynical film noir actress, an acutely observant Secret Service agent turned photographer, and a colorful supporting cast get embroiled in a slightly overworked and overcomplicated plot and almost win their way to genuinely great Leonard. Not quite, because I can't get over being mostly bored with the actual scheme, but almost.
Joe LaBrava left the Secret Service behind and now takes (very good and very compellingly described) photos of some of the more affecting and arresting Miami characters: women who show off their breasts with a kind of pitiful bravery, men who show off their struts with the same. His friend Maury, who acts as a sort of agent for his photography, ends up introducing him to Jean Shaw, a woman LaBrava previously knew only from her movies--and from the burgeoning crush he had on her perennial bad girl characters. A kind of romance begins between LaBrava and Jean, with him never knowing for sure how many of her lines to him are lines from her movies, but all the while, hick former cop Richard Nobles and lithe exotic dancer Cundo Rey are working on getting themselves some money.
Nobles is another slight drag on the novel--Cundo Rey, with his blend of competence and deference and shrugging off of his dancing career, is more compelling--but the real problem is just that the plot has too much machinery in it. That may be deliberate--it's specifically meant to evoke the overdone plots of Jean's old movies--but it still bogs down the action. Simplifying the scheme, or at least reducing Nobles's presence and how closely we follow him throughout the book, would add to the meta-noir sharpness Leonard has working here, with the femme fatales and good girls, the men getting played, all the greed, and the fading setting.
But the characterization is strong, and the essential hook of LaBrava meeting a former movie star who seems to be stuck in the plot of one of her movies, is a good and powerful one, and it makes for a great ending with a terrific and slightly unnerving punchline.
"Swell."
A superbly evoked South Beach setting, a compellingly cynical film noir actress, an acutely observant Secret Service agent turned photographer, and a colorful supporting cast get embroiled in a slightly overworked and overcomplicated plot and almost win their way to genuinely great Leonard. Not quite, because I can't get over being mostly bored with the actual scheme, but almost.
Joe LaBrava left the Secret Service behind and now takes (very good and very compellingly described) photos of some of the more affecting and arresting Miami characters: women who show off their breasts with a kind of pitiful bravery, men who show off their struts with the same. His friend Maury, who acts as a sort of agent for his photography, ends up introducing him to Jean Shaw, a woman LaBrava previously knew only from her movies--and from the burgeoning crush he had on her perennial bad girl characters. A kind of romance begins between LaBrava and Jean, with him never knowing for sure how many of her lines to him are lines from her movies, but all the while, hick former cop Richard Nobles and lithe exotic dancer Cundo Rey are working on getting themselves some money.
Nobles is another slight drag on the novel--Cundo Rey, with his blend of competence and deference and shrugging off of his dancing career, is more compelling--but the real problem is just that the plot has too much machinery in it. That may be deliberate--it's specifically meant to evoke the overdone plots of Jean's old movies--but it still bogs down the action. Simplifying the scheme, or at least reducing Nobles's presence and how closely we follow him throughout the book, would add to the meta-noir sharpness Leonard has working here, with the femme fatales and good girls, the men getting played, all the greed, and the fading setting.
But the characterization is strong, and the essential hook of LaBrava meeting a former movie star who seems to be stuck in the plot of one of her movies, is a good and powerful one, and it makes for a great ending with a terrific and slightly unnerving punchline.
"Swell."
October 10, 2016
Have I finally read enough Elmore that I guessed the twist, for once? (That is a good thing. Not a bad thing.) Still couldn’t guess how it ended, and that’s classic Elmore.
LaBrava said, “Maury, who’s crazy, you or me?”
“How do I know?” Maurice said. “Maybe both of us. Don’t ask me any hard ones.”
LaBrava said, “Maury, who’s crazy, you or me?”
“How do I know?” Maurice said. “Maybe both of us. Don’t ask me any hard ones.”
April 14, 2023
I have read 11 Elmore Leonard books so far and this one is the least favorite. It lacked almost everything that makes him a hailed writer of this kind of books. It wasnt enough well written hardcore story and it wasnt fun story with quirky characters like some of his other crime books. He is a rare master of great dialogue and believable shady,low life characters. Except LaBrava himself the other characters felt like a parody,vanilla versions of his other better books,characters.
This book show how useless yearly awards like Edgar award really is too. LaBrava might have been the best american crime book of 1984 but it is not near the best Elmore Leonard book in the 80s or let alone compared the great books he has written in 1990s-2000s. Its a decent novel but he has written many better books that didnt win some lame award like Edgar Award.
It also shows he has improved as writer even his 70s,80s. I have read his 1970s books they dont compare to post 1990 books of his. He is great writer of any kind of field because of his prose,dialouge but this book is not the best example of that. I dont want sound too critical of this book i rate it weak 3 stars because of his writing but i expected much better because of his record of strong books.
This book show how useless yearly awards like Edgar award really is too. LaBrava might have been the best american crime book of 1984 but it is not near the best Elmore Leonard book in the 80s or let alone compared the great books he has written in 1990s-2000s. Its a decent novel but he has written many better books that didnt win some lame award like Edgar Award.
It also shows he has improved as writer even his 70s,80s. I have read his 1970s books they dont compare to post 1990 books of his. He is great writer of any kind of field because of his prose,dialouge but this book is not the best example of that. I dont want sound too critical of this book i rate it weak 3 stars because of his writing but i expected much better because of his record of strong books.
January 15, 2024
My favorite Leonard.
May 22, 2016
A bit disappointed with this, it all started off in true Leonard style with great use of snappy dialogue some interesting characters which usually involves lowlifes,law enforcement,petty criminals out of their depth and double crossings it's no different here but I felt as the second half of the book progressed it had that "we have been here before" element to it and just didn't have the depth,humour or coolness of some of his better works and at times it felt like a watered down version of Rum Punch,but saying that even his weaker novels are better than most other crime fiction out there.
August 25, 2017
I find it rather difficult to criticise Elmore Leonard. His plots are super tight, characters are interesting and there never is a dull moment in his books. Even the dialogue is rather witty. LaBrava is Leonard on top form and has his most interesting storylines to boot.
Joe LaBrava is an ex agent turned photographer. One day, through a rich friend of his, he comes across a movie star who he idolised in his youth. It turns out though that she’s destitute and is going to be killed by a thug and his cuban sidekick. Soon Labrava starts thinking that he’s in an action film and finds it difficult to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Obviously he gets his way but at a bit of a cost.
Leonard’s crime novels are never whodunnits. He lays everything plain and in your face. The main focus is how his characters are going to get out of sticky situations and their reaction to the crimes committed. Plus his characters are wonderfully fleshed out and realistic so it’s a joy reading about their antics.
After reading a series of experimental novels, books like LaBrava do lighten up the general doom and gloom of the list.
Announcement
At the moment there will be a bit of a break. No worries I WILL continue with the list but I’m reading a couple of novels that aren’t mentioned in the book as I’m in the mood for some more contemporary lit.
Joe LaBrava is an ex agent turned photographer. One day, through a rich friend of his, he comes across a movie star who he idolised in his youth. It turns out though that she’s destitute and is going to be killed by a thug and his cuban sidekick. Soon Labrava starts thinking that he’s in an action film and finds it difficult to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Obviously he gets his way but at a bit of a cost.
Leonard’s crime novels are never whodunnits. He lays everything plain and in your face. The main focus is how his characters are going to get out of sticky situations and their reaction to the crimes committed. Plus his characters are wonderfully fleshed out and realistic so it’s a joy reading about their antics.
After reading a series of experimental novels, books like LaBrava do lighten up the general doom and gloom of the list.
Announcement
At the moment there will be a bit of a break. No worries I WILL continue with the list but I’m reading a couple of novels that aren’t mentioned in the book as I’m in the mood for some more contemporary lit.
February 26, 2024
LaBrava
Un 3.5/5 en realidad.
Una novela que le valió a Leonard el premio Edgar de misterio en 1984. Otra más en el estilo del autor, más que tramas complicadas, son los personajes que introduce los que dan el juego.
Una antigua actriz venida a menos, pero con muchos recuerdos, un anciano rico dueño de un hotel, un vigilante de seguridad ex de otras cosas, pero con pocas luces, un cubano muy raro huido de Cuba y Joe LaBrava un fotógrafo entrometido con un pasado de agente secreto o así.
Esto se agita con los diálogos y situaciones inesperadas que desparrama Leonard por toda la trama y tenemos una buena novela que puede resultar previsible, porque se ve venir desde lejos. Pero no creo que mantener el misterio hasta el final sea lo que pretende el autor si no crear esos personajes tan distintos entre sí y la relación de la ex actriz con todos ellos que a la vez engancha y separa al grupo mientras despierta al agente LaBrava.
Un 3.5/5 en realidad.
Una novela que le valió a Leonard el premio Edgar de misterio en 1984. Otra más en el estilo del autor, más que tramas complicadas, son los personajes que introduce los que dan el juego.
Una antigua actriz venida a menos, pero con muchos recuerdos, un anciano rico dueño de un hotel, un vigilante de seguridad ex de otras cosas, pero con pocas luces, un cubano muy raro huido de Cuba y Joe LaBrava un fotógrafo entrometido con un pasado de agente secreto o así.
Esto se agita con los diálogos y situaciones inesperadas que desparrama Leonard por toda la trama y tenemos una buena novela que puede resultar previsible, porque se ve venir desde lejos. Pero no creo que mantener el misterio hasta el final sea lo que pretende el autor si no crear esos personajes tan distintos entre sí y la relación de la ex actriz con todos ellos que a la vez engancha y separa al grupo mientras despierta al agente LaBrava.
March 16, 2010
“A while ago somewhere
I don’t know when
I was watching a movie with a friend.
I fell in love with the actress.
She was playing a part that I could understand.”
-Neil Young, “A Man Needs a Maid”
It took a chapter or two, after we’re finally introduced to Jean Shaw and what she means to secret service agent come photographer Joe LaBrava, that Neil Young’s song “A Man Needs a Maid” came to mind. I’m sure we all have that actress, or actor, who we’ve seen and who in our youth we maybe fell a little bit in love with. There might have come a point when that actress and the parts she plays have become nigh inseparable in our hearts and minds. Of course, given today’s fascination with celebrity and the constant vulture like circling of paparazzi the illusion that films provided is somewhat lost. The mystery and magic of actors and actresses is shattered by the flash of the camera and the thunder of gossip across television screens and computer monitors. A belief that is at least somewhat thematically related to LaBrava which, while being a crime thriller, is as much about the reality of of modern times shattering the illusions of the past as it about crime.
As a historical side note Labrava, published in 1983, was written just 4 years after the area was officially added to the National Register of Historic Places (1979) and only 3 years after the Miami race riots and after some 25 years of population increases resulting from Castro’s takeover in Cuba in 1959 . To say it was an area in both deep economic and demographic flux is perhaps putting it mildly but I think it is worth noting. It is perhaps interesting to note as well that two years later, in 1985, Miami Vice would take home four Emmies and would remain an example and monument to eighties New Wave culture for years to come. The bright colors of Miami Vice stand in stark contrasted to faded glories described in Labrava.
The above is important since Joe LaBrava lives in a hotel in Miami Beach owned by a former bookie named Maurice. The vocal and somewhat cantankerous Maurice, like his hotel, is a product of “better” time; the reader’s link to Miami Beach’s more glamorous past. Like Jean Shaw, the tired movie star of LaBrava’s adolescent dreams, Maurice links into idea of romanticizing the past. It is a theme directly contrasted by LaBrava’s profession of photographer, as a man whose bread and butter has become immortalizing the present and who excels at capturing people in their truest state. Indeed, we are even introduced a painter whose is attempting to painted the decaying architectural wonders of Miami Beach’s architecture but who, after encountering LaBrava and his work, suddenly starts painting people. Leonard pulls off the connection more subtly then I describe there, but it remains that Leonard seems to be drawing a clear link to the importance of the here and now and the people rather then the places that they live in.
Indeed LaBrava is consistently drawn as a keen observer of people and situations. Formerly an IRS Agent he is keen observer of people and behavior. Skills he later honed as a Secret Service Agent where he gained the ability to read a room and observe without being observed. Yet, his infatuation with Jean Shaw and the roles she played in the films he loved end up blinding him to the present. His link to the past effectively clouds his judgment and compromises his ability to observe and process the details around him. It is elegantly done and, while the reader eventually sees what’s happening, never manages to feel contrived.
His keen observation skills and love of Jean Shaws old movies aside LaBrava remains an surprisingly unobtrusive character. While some might complain that this is a detriment to a hard-boiled thriller I would argue that it is intentional on Leonard’s part. As LaBrava frequently states, or others mention about LaBrava, he doesn’t pose the subjects of his work. In his role as photographer LaBrava fades to the background letting the subjects choose the pose or, quite simply, catching them candidly. LaBrava’s role in the story is thus similar to his job as photographer. While he remains the reader’s primary means of observation he also serves as a facilitator in introducing the more brightly colored and interesting characters he interacts with. The go-go dancing, car stealing Cundo Rey, the brutish Richard Nobles, the fast-talking Maurice, and many others are all side-characters more vividly drawn then LaBrava himself. It was an effect I quite liked though one that the seasoned crime reader might not appreciate.
In the end I found LaBrava an enjoyable read if not as immediately engaging as some of my previous experiences so far. The dialogue is interesting though bounces back from somewhat mundane to showing a true creative flair. Where the story shines is in the cast of oddball characters that seem to hover around the plot itself (Cundo Rey would later appear in Leonard’s 2009 novel Road Dogs). While I can’t say how LaBrava stacks up against Leonard’s other fiction I can say that it is worth a look for anyone interested in a fascinating story filled with colorful characters; even if that plot is occasionally predictable.
I don’t know when
I was watching a movie with a friend.
I fell in love with the actress.
She was playing a part that I could understand.”
-Neil Young, “A Man Needs a Maid”
It took a chapter or two, after we’re finally introduced to Jean Shaw and what she means to secret service agent come photographer Joe LaBrava, that Neil Young’s song “A Man Needs a Maid” came to mind. I’m sure we all have that actress, or actor, who we’ve seen and who in our youth we maybe fell a little bit in love with. There might have come a point when that actress and the parts she plays have become nigh inseparable in our hearts and minds. Of course, given today’s fascination with celebrity and the constant vulture like circling of paparazzi the illusion that films provided is somewhat lost. The mystery and magic of actors and actresses is shattered by the flash of the camera and the thunder of gossip across television screens and computer monitors. A belief that is at least somewhat thematically related to LaBrava which, while being a crime thriller, is as much about the reality of of modern times shattering the illusions of the past as it about crime.
As a historical side note Labrava, published in 1983, was written just 4 years after the area was officially added to the National Register of Historic Places (1979) and only 3 years after the Miami race riots and after some 25 years of population increases resulting from Castro’s takeover in Cuba in 1959 . To say it was an area in both deep economic and demographic flux is perhaps putting it mildly but I think it is worth noting. It is perhaps interesting to note as well that two years later, in 1985, Miami Vice would take home four Emmies and would remain an example and monument to eighties New Wave culture for years to come. The bright colors of Miami Vice stand in stark contrasted to faded glories described in Labrava.
The above is important since Joe LaBrava lives in a hotel in Miami Beach owned by a former bookie named Maurice. The vocal and somewhat cantankerous Maurice, like his hotel, is a product of “better” time; the reader’s link to Miami Beach’s more glamorous past. Like Jean Shaw, the tired movie star of LaBrava’s adolescent dreams, Maurice links into idea of romanticizing the past. It is a theme directly contrasted by LaBrava’s profession of photographer, as a man whose bread and butter has become immortalizing the present and who excels at capturing people in their truest state. Indeed, we are even introduced a painter whose is attempting to painted the decaying architectural wonders of Miami Beach’s architecture but who, after encountering LaBrava and his work, suddenly starts painting people. Leonard pulls off the connection more subtly then I describe there, but it remains that Leonard seems to be drawing a clear link to the importance of the here and now and the people rather then the places that they live in.
Indeed LaBrava is consistently drawn as a keen observer of people and situations. Formerly an IRS Agent he is keen observer of people and behavior. Skills he later honed as a Secret Service Agent where he gained the ability to read a room and observe without being observed. Yet, his infatuation with Jean Shaw and the roles she played in the films he loved end up blinding him to the present. His link to the past effectively clouds his judgment and compromises his ability to observe and process the details around him. It is elegantly done and, while the reader eventually sees what’s happening, never manages to feel contrived.
His keen observation skills and love of Jean Shaws old movies aside LaBrava remains an surprisingly unobtrusive character. While some might complain that this is a detriment to a hard-boiled thriller I would argue that it is intentional on Leonard’s part. As LaBrava frequently states, or others mention about LaBrava, he doesn’t pose the subjects of his work. In his role as photographer LaBrava fades to the background letting the subjects choose the pose or, quite simply, catching them candidly. LaBrava’s role in the story is thus similar to his job as photographer. While he remains the reader’s primary means of observation he also serves as a facilitator in introducing the more brightly colored and interesting characters he interacts with. The go-go dancing, car stealing Cundo Rey, the brutish Richard Nobles, the fast-talking Maurice, and many others are all side-characters more vividly drawn then LaBrava himself. It was an effect I quite liked though one that the seasoned crime reader might not appreciate.
In the end I found LaBrava an enjoyable read if not as immediately engaging as some of my previous experiences so far. The dialogue is interesting though bounces back from somewhat mundane to showing a true creative flair. Where the story shines is in the cast of oddball characters that seem to hover around the plot itself (Cundo Rey would later appear in Leonard’s 2009 novel Road Dogs). While I can’t say how LaBrava stacks up against Leonard’s other fiction I can say that it is worth a look for anyone interested in a fascinating story filled with colorful characters; even if that plot is occasionally predictable.
August 10, 2025
Nobody has ever written dialogue better than Elmore Leonard. Not even Shakespeare. Kind of joking but not really.
Fun Fact: Leonard had such a frustrating experience trying to adapt this into a movie (starring Dustin Hoffman) that it inspired him to write Get Shorty.
Fun Fact: Leonard had such a frustrating experience trying to adapt this into a movie (starring Dustin Hoffman) that it inspired him to write Get Shorty.
April 19, 2017
"LaBrava got Nobles down on his spine, head hard against the wall to straddle his legs. Worked free the bluesteel revolver [...] and slipped the blunt end of the barrel into his open mouth. Nobles gagged, trying to twist free.
LaBrava said, 'Suck on it. It'll calm you down.'"
Not an easy review to write as I am forced to demonstrate my own incompetence. Elmore Leonard's LaBrava received the prestigious Edgar Award for the best novel in 1984 and yet I have been unable to find anything remarkable about the book. While readers are not expected to fully agree with literary critics my disagreement with the Edgars' jury is rather vehement: LaBrava has a moderately interesting story, but then nothing else stands out. Flat characterizations, stereotypes, and uninspired prose. I have always believed that the art of writing should be the most important criterion when judging a book, not whether it tells a good story. Well, I might have been wrong.
The scene is Florida in the early 1980s, much changed for the worse in comparison with the golden times of 40 or 50 years earlier. We meet a once famous movie actress, Jean, her close friend Maurice, a professional photographer, real estate owner and manager, and Joe LaBrava, an ex-government operative with Secret Service experience. Two hustlers round off the set of main characters. The opening scene in a County Crisis Center is quite interesting: all characters appear here and the men are looking for Jean who overindulged in alcohol and caused a street scene. The author then takes about a hundred pages to leisurely build the criminal intrigue. It is only about page 150 that the reader begins to realize what the plot is all about. I did not particularly enjoy the denouement although it is reasonably elegant and not that implausible.
I have a serious problem with characterizations: I don't feel the protagonists of LaBrava are real people - they are just vehicles to move the plot, instances of cliché templates of certain types of people. We have a "big hunk of a man with a tiny brain," a "small hustler short on imagination but long on criminal history" and a "basically good guy torn between his sense of duty and his heart." The plot includes many little side stories that may be interesting to readers who like to learn about how it supposedly is in the real world of crime, yet I fail to grasp how these stories contribute to the novel.
The intrigue - while ingenious - is just a movie plot. The novel reads exactly like a script for a potentially successful crime movie, but is this really enough to make the story a good novel? Let me paraphrase the viciously biting critique of an author (I am substituting Mr. Leonard for Mr. Crichton) offered by Martin Amis in his The War Against Cliché "Story is what Mr. Leonard is good at. People are what he is not so good at. People and prose." On the positive side, I quite like the clever connection of the plot with 1950s movies and the tastefully written love scene. The Florida sense of place comes across a little, certainly better than the psychology stereotypes. The characters talk in a language used by "people in the know", for instance, we hear them talk about "the coast" - only one coast is "the coast" in this country of two coasts.
Worth a read? Certainly, if one reads books solely for the story.
Two and a half stars.
LaBrava said, 'Suck on it. It'll calm you down.'"
Not an easy review to write as I am forced to demonstrate my own incompetence. Elmore Leonard's LaBrava received the prestigious Edgar Award for the best novel in 1984 and yet I have been unable to find anything remarkable about the book. While readers are not expected to fully agree with literary critics my disagreement with the Edgars' jury is rather vehement: LaBrava has a moderately interesting story, but then nothing else stands out. Flat characterizations, stereotypes, and uninspired prose. I have always believed that the art of writing should be the most important criterion when judging a book, not whether it tells a good story. Well, I might have been wrong.
The scene is Florida in the early 1980s, much changed for the worse in comparison with the golden times of 40 or 50 years earlier. We meet a once famous movie actress, Jean, her close friend Maurice, a professional photographer, real estate owner and manager, and Joe LaBrava, an ex-government operative with Secret Service experience. Two hustlers round off the set of main characters. The opening scene in a County Crisis Center is quite interesting: all characters appear here and the men are looking for Jean who overindulged in alcohol and caused a street scene. The author then takes about a hundred pages to leisurely build the criminal intrigue. It is only about page 150 that the reader begins to realize what the plot is all about. I did not particularly enjoy the denouement although it is reasonably elegant and not that implausible.
I have a serious problem with characterizations: I don't feel the protagonists of LaBrava are real people - they are just vehicles to move the plot, instances of cliché templates of certain types of people. We have a "big hunk of a man with a tiny brain," a "small hustler short on imagination but long on criminal history" and a "basically good guy torn between his sense of duty and his heart." The plot includes many little side stories that may be interesting to readers who like to learn about how it supposedly is in the real world of crime, yet I fail to grasp how these stories contribute to the novel.
The intrigue - while ingenious - is just a movie plot. The novel reads exactly like a script for a potentially successful crime movie, but is this really enough to make the story a good novel? Let me paraphrase the viciously biting critique of an author (I am substituting Mr. Leonard for Mr. Crichton) offered by Martin Amis in his The War Against Cliché "Story is what Mr. Leonard is good at. People are what he is not so good at. People and prose." On the positive side, I quite like the clever connection of the plot with 1950s movies and the tastefully written love scene. The Florida sense of place comes across a little, certainly better than the psychology stereotypes. The characters talk in a language used by "people in the know", for instance, we hear them talk about "the coast" - only one coast is "the coast" in this country of two coasts.
Worth a read? Certainly, if one reads books solely for the story.
Two and a half stars.
August 15, 2022
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that action is character; for Elmore Leonard, it's the other way around. For him this approach to writing definitely a virtue, since if he was a worse writer it would veer much harder to being a vice, but can also have its downsides when misapplied or unweighted in a particular novel -- such as this one, for instance.
Let me say, of course, that there's a huge amount to like in this book -- its spectacular dialogue, characters, and glitzy evocation of early 80s Miami (I kept imagining the plot of Scarface happening around the corner at all times) -- but its generally lackadaisical pace, lower-than-usual stakes, and focus on plot as an afterthought to the characters rather than a supporting structure for them ultimately places it a little behind the other Leonards I've read so far.
Not that it was ever boring, mind you: the dialogue and writing itself keeps you hooked even though the plot doesn't start to form until more than halfway through the page count, and doesn't really kick in until the very end. But ultimately I would have found it more engaging if it ran on a bit of a higher engine and didn't at times feel like a book of people talking around the plot in order to advance it.
Anyway, the only other thing I'll say is that I will definitely take a book starring the awesomely queer-coded Cuban go-go dancing hitman Cundo Ray as the protagonist over the bland, unspectacular Joe LaBrava any day. Thank you.
Let me say, of course, that there's a huge amount to like in this book -- its spectacular dialogue, characters, and glitzy evocation of early 80s Miami (I kept imagining the plot of Scarface happening around the corner at all times) -- but its generally lackadaisical pace, lower-than-usual stakes, and focus on plot as an afterthought to the characters rather than a supporting structure for them ultimately places it a little behind the other Leonards I've read so far.
Not that it was ever boring, mind you: the dialogue and writing itself keeps you hooked even though the plot doesn't start to form until more than halfway through the page count, and doesn't really kick in until the very end. But ultimately I would have found it more engaging if it ran on a bit of a higher engine and didn't at times feel like a book of people talking around the plot in order to advance it.
Anyway, the only other thing I'll say is that I will definitely take a book starring the awesomely queer-coded Cuban go-go dancing hitman Cundo Ray as the protagonist over the bland, unspectacular Joe LaBrava any day. Thank you.
June 24, 2022
Other GR members have described Leonard’s work as either a home run or a strikeout. He whiffed on three pitches with LaBrava. It was too long, too “talky,” and tediously paced. The plot development was stilted and characters were mere clichés. It scored just Two Stars with me.
August 25, 2023
Joe LaBrava is just a guy who ekes out a living taking photographs in Miami Beach. He is a former Secret Service Agent who also worked as an IRS Agent. All his life he has thought of the movie star Jean Shaw. Jean is friends with Maurice Zola, an 80-year old ex-bookmaker. “You told me you were a millionaire one time.” “Used to be,” Maurice said. “I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted.”
I think of this as hardboiled crime fiction, but updated from Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. LaBrava is not a true private detective and if that is a requirement then this doesn't fit. Goodreads members have more often shelved this as noir. I think it is not as dark and hard-hitting as I would define noir, but is far from cozy.
The writing style, which I liked, certainly isn't fancy - far from literary even - but fits the plot and characters perfectly. Lots of plot, less of characterization but enough of Joe LaBrava to make this worthwhile. Even though I'm giving this only 3-stars, I see more Elmore Leonard in my future.
I think of this as hardboiled crime fiction, but updated from Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. LaBrava is not a true private detective and if that is a requirement then this doesn't fit. Goodreads members have more often shelved this as noir. I think it is not as dark and hard-hitting as I would define noir, but is far from cozy.
The writing style, which I liked, certainly isn't fancy - far from literary even - but fits the plot and characters perfectly. Lots of plot, less of characterization but enough of Joe LaBrava to make this worthwhile. Even though I'm giving this only 3-stars, I see more Elmore Leonard in my future.
February 20, 2025
After reading Miami Blues I started wondering if the author had ever won an Edgar Award. Turns out he did not, but this title from Elmore Leonard did. So I felt compelled to read it even though I had never heard of it before. I'm quite surprised that this won an Edgar . . . that were no other mystery novels in 1984 better than this one. Doing some further research I learned that The Name of the Rose made the Edgar shortlist in 1984 and I think that was a far better novel than this.
Not what I would consider a "typical" Leonard novel. There is virtually no humor in the novel, and it is an extremely slow burn finally getting to the actual mystery. Of course, there are memorable characters, which has always been a strength of the author, but the story itself made it hard for me to feel invested in it.
Not what I would consider a "typical" Leonard novel. There is virtually no humor in the novel, and it is an extremely slow burn finally getting to the actual mystery. Of course, there are memorable characters, which has always been a strength of the author, but the story itself made it hard for me to feel invested in it.
June 10, 2025
Elmore Leonard In South Miami
Elmore Leonard's novel "LaBrava"received the 1984 Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best novel, but the book's strengths are more in atmosphere and in characterization than in its story of extortion and crime. The novel offers a realistic, detailed portrayal of Miami streets and also makes great use of the art of photography and of film noir.
Set in a crime-ridden, deteriorated Miami of the 1980s, the novel centers on its title character, Joe Labrava, 38, an ex-Secret Service man who has redirected his life to pursue his passion for photography. LaBrava is a close friend of another main character, Maurice Zola, in his 80s. Maurice operates a hotel in what once was a fashionable area. He too had been a photographer from his early years when he also was involved in crime, including bookmaking. Congressional investigations in the 1950s curtailed Maurice's criminal activity.
Both LaBrava and Maurice have romantic, sexual interests in Jean Shaw, a former Hollywood actress who played the femme fatale in many a film noir. Her films (fictitious) are described in detail in the course of the book, and many of them become echoed in the story's tangled plot. LaBrava says Jean became his first love when at the age of twelve he saw one of her movies. Jean is also an old flame of Maurice and his business partner who own a more than 5o percent stake in the hotel. Still, Jean has fallen on difficult times financially with the end of her movie career and the death of her husband. Another woman character and romantic interest of LaBrava, Frannie Kaufman, is a budding artist, a painter, but she works to get by selling phony cosmetics to some of the elderly, wrinkled residents of South Miami who live on their dreams and illusions. Frannie comes close to stealing this novel with her energy and her sexuality.
The two bad guys in the story, Richard Nobles and Cundo Rey, have tangled criminal and personal pasts. Both men are evil but also dumb and dull. The portrayals of these two characters add little to the book.
Leonard develops his story carefully and slowly to draw the reader in. The opening chapters introduce LaBrava, Maurice, and Jean and develop their backstories and their relationships. Leonard weaves in a discussion of some Florida history, including the hurricane which occurred in 1935 on the railroad linking the Florida Keys to the mainland, the worst railroad disaster in Florida history.. Maurice gained reputation from his photographs of the calamity. The book then follows LaBrava as he walks through the streets of once thriving South Miami to photograph the hotels and businesses, and, more importantly, the people, from the elderly and lost to the young junkies, criminals, druggies, and hustlers. LaBrava has the rare artistic gift of capturing the subjects of his photographs in unguarded moments, making them reveal their characters almost in spite of themselves. LaBrava becomes taken with his former childhood love, Jean, and the two spend a great deal of time discussing her old film noirs and their stories.
The criminal element of the novel develops slowly and gradually. LaBrava finds through his photographs Nobles and Rey engaged in a clumsy shakedown effort for protection money among the local businesses. The shakedown soon assumes a more personal, immediate cast as the bad guys try to extort $600,000 from the apparently impoverished Jean. In the latter part of the book, the extortion attempt assumes prominence at the expense of the characterizations and depictions in the early part of the novel. The plot becomes overly-cumbersome with some surprising twists.
The book is full of Leonard's sharp observations and of his gift for sharp, pungent dialog. For example, in an early scene, LaBrava and Maurice are discussing Maurice's early life and his easy, wealthy criminal past. The following short conversation ensues.
"You told me you were a millionaire at one time"
"Used to be," Maurice said. "I spent most of my dough on booze, broads, and boats and the rest I wasted."
In another early passage, Leonard describes how LaBrava's life in law enforcement gradually morphed into his artistic realism in photography.
"LaBrava said he'd almost quit after guarding Teddy [Kennedy]. But he hung on and was reassigned to go after counterfeiters again, now out of the Miami field office, now getting into his work and enjoying it. A new angle. He picked up a Nikon, attached a 200-mm lens, and began using it in surveillance work. Loved it. Snapping undercover agents making deals with wholesalers, passers unloading their funny money. Off duty he continued snapping away: shooting up and down Southwest Eighth Street, the heart of Little Havana, or riding with a couple of Metro cops to document basic Dade County violence. He felt himself attracted to street life. It was a strange feeling, he was at home, knew the people, saw more outcast faces and attitudes than he would ever be able to record, people who showed him their essence behind all kinds of poses -- did Maurice understand this? -- and trapped them in his camera for all time."
With its focus on street life and on photography, film, and painting, "LaBrava" has more of a noir character than most of Leonard's writing. The book's setting and its non-criminal characters are convincing, as is the story of simply wandering the streets of a decaying part of town and observing. The extortion plot, when it develops and resolves, feels overly tangled. It constitutes a falling-off from the way in which Leonard begins and appears to be taking his book. Still, in its portrayal of street life and in its discussion of the lives and passions of the four main characters, "LaBrava" is gritty and magical. It may not be a great crime story, but it is an enjoyable, thoughtful book. "LaBrava" is available as an independent paperback and in the outstanding compilation from the Library of America: "Elmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1980s".
Robin Friedman
Elmore Leonard's novel "LaBrava"received the 1984 Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best novel, but the book's strengths are more in atmosphere and in characterization than in its story of extortion and crime. The novel offers a realistic, detailed portrayal of Miami streets and also makes great use of the art of photography and of film noir.
Set in a crime-ridden, deteriorated Miami of the 1980s, the novel centers on its title character, Joe Labrava, 38, an ex-Secret Service man who has redirected his life to pursue his passion for photography. LaBrava is a close friend of another main character, Maurice Zola, in his 80s. Maurice operates a hotel in what once was a fashionable area. He too had been a photographer from his early years when he also was involved in crime, including bookmaking. Congressional investigations in the 1950s curtailed Maurice's criminal activity.
Both LaBrava and Maurice have romantic, sexual interests in Jean Shaw, a former Hollywood actress who played the femme fatale in many a film noir. Her films (fictitious) are described in detail in the course of the book, and many of them become echoed in the story's tangled plot. LaBrava says Jean became his first love when at the age of twelve he saw one of her movies. Jean is also an old flame of Maurice and his business partner who own a more than 5o percent stake in the hotel. Still, Jean has fallen on difficult times financially with the end of her movie career and the death of her husband. Another woman character and romantic interest of LaBrava, Frannie Kaufman, is a budding artist, a painter, but she works to get by selling phony cosmetics to some of the elderly, wrinkled residents of South Miami who live on their dreams and illusions. Frannie comes close to stealing this novel with her energy and her sexuality.
The two bad guys in the story, Richard Nobles and Cundo Rey, have tangled criminal and personal pasts. Both men are evil but also dumb and dull. The portrayals of these two characters add little to the book.
Leonard develops his story carefully and slowly to draw the reader in. The opening chapters introduce LaBrava, Maurice, and Jean and develop their backstories and their relationships. Leonard weaves in a discussion of some Florida history, including the hurricane which occurred in 1935 on the railroad linking the Florida Keys to the mainland, the worst railroad disaster in Florida history.. Maurice gained reputation from his photographs of the calamity. The book then follows LaBrava as he walks through the streets of once thriving South Miami to photograph the hotels and businesses, and, more importantly, the people, from the elderly and lost to the young junkies, criminals, druggies, and hustlers. LaBrava has the rare artistic gift of capturing the subjects of his photographs in unguarded moments, making them reveal their characters almost in spite of themselves. LaBrava becomes taken with his former childhood love, Jean, and the two spend a great deal of time discussing her old film noirs and their stories.
The criminal element of the novel develops slowly and gradually. LaBrava finds through his photographs Nobles and Rey engaged in a clumsy shakedown effort for protection money among the local businesses. The shakedown soon assumes a more personal, immediate cast as the bad guys try to extort $600,000 from the apparently impoverished Jean. In the latter part of the book, the extortion attempt assumes prominence at the expense of the characterizations and depictions in the early part of the novel. The plot becomes overly-cumbersome with some surprising twists.
The book is full of Leonard's sharp observations and of his gift for sharp, pungent dialog. For example, in an early scene, LaBrava and Maurice are discussing Maurice's early life and his easy, wealthy criminal past. The following short conversation ensues.
"You told me you were a millionaire at one time"
"Used to be," Maurice said. "I spent most of my dough on booze, broads, and boats and the rest I wasted."
In another early passage, Leonard describes how LaBrava's life in law enforcement gradually morphed into his artistic realism in photography.
"LaBrava said he'd almost quit after guarding Teddy [Kennedy]. But he hung on and was reassigned to go after counterfeiters again, now out of the Miami field office, now getting into his work and enjoying it. A new angle. He picked up a Nikon, attached a 200-mm lens, and began using it in surveillance work. Loved it. Snapping undercover agents making deals with wholesalers, passers unloading their funny money. Off duty he continued snapping away: shooting up and down Southwest Eighth Street, the heart of Little Havana, or riding with a couple of Metro cops to document basic Dade County violence. He felt himself attracted to street life. It was a strange feeling, he was at home, knew the people, saw more outcast faces and attitudes than he would ever be able to record, people who showed him their essence behind all kinds of poses -- did Maurice understand this? -- and trapped them in his camera for all time."
With its focus on street life and on photography, film, and painting, "LaBrava" has more of a noir character than most of Leonard's writing. The book's setting and its non-criminal characters are convincing, as is the story of simply wandering the streets of a decaying part of town and observing. The extortion plot, when it develops and resolves, feels overly tangled. It constitutes a falling-off from the way in which Leonard begins and appears to be taking his book. Still, in its portrayal of street life and in its discussion of the lives and passions of the four main characters, "LaBrava" is gritty and magical. It may not be a great crime story, but it is an enjoyable, thoughtful book. "LaBrava" is available as an independent paperback and in the outstanding compilation from the Library of America: "Elmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1980s".
Robin Friedman
January 28, 2016
There is a difference between being authentic and being convincing. I don't know if a faded 50s film noir femme fatale actress ending up in Miami with a drink problem and an aging Jewish hotel-owning benefactor is authentic, but Leonard convinced me. Joe La Brava, the ex-secret serviceman turned photographer convinced me too. The redneck hustler with his Cuban go-go dancing sidekick were less plausible in hindsight, but Leonard's dialogue is his great gift. His ear for speech is entirely authentic.
July 15, 2015
From 1001 list - not sure why this Elmore Leonard made the list- perhaps it was the structure of the double-crosses and the movie tie-in that made the story particularly compelling. O.k. Summer read.
July 10, 2011
If you’re familiar with the noir genre, nothing about La Brava will surprise you. Yet, the ride is still worth it. If one can imagine a Raymond Chandler novel where everything about the scam, the job, the set-up goes wrong but where there is a nasty turn to that wrongness, one can imagine La Brava. The joy is in the cast of characters. These would make good characters in a video game because they are stereotypes with a twist.
The protagonist is Joe LaBrava. Joe is a former Secret Service agent who underwent a tremendous amount of training in order to watch television while watching over former first lady, Bess Truman. He leaves undercover work to follow his bliss in photography and discovers that his landlord is friends with a movie star on which he had experienced a crush since his adolescent years. It would have been like me meeting Hayley Mills (the girl slightly older than me who was cast as a teen star as I was reaching puberty) or Mary Tyler Moore (having had a crush on the Dick Van Dyke version) in real life. [Actually, I have met some female stars in real life who looked gorgeous on the big screen but didn’t exactly have the same effect on me as the film star has on the protagonist in this novel.] Because he has a real nostalgic love for the beauty of the “silver screen” (in its glorious black and white years), he specializes in black and white photography as he navigates the shades of gray in this story.
The supporting character sine qua non is an old Jewish fellow, something of a Meyer Lansky-type except that his connection with the mob was as a very successful bookie. Maurice Zola knows everybody and seems incredibly comfortable in his own skin. Everybody seems to like him and, at the same time, everyone seems to underestimate him. His contacts, influence, and resources are vital to the set-up of the plot, but a lot of his life seems to be spent living in the memories of what South Beach was like in the mob-run years.
Jean Shaw is the former movie star, the “bad girl” brunette movie star who always seemed to lose the guy to the “good girl” blonde (although I seem to remember more cases where the hair color is switched and the brunette was the “good girl”). As LaBrava tries to rescue this (in a role-reversal for Jean) damsel in distress, it looks like she could end up with the right guy, after all.
But no “noir” novel or even something as simple as a melodrama works without a villain. In this case, the two villains are also interesting. One is a psychopathic criminal named Richard Nobles who managed to get his record expunged by cooperating with federal authorities (ie. snitching). With a clean record, he has been able to get a job as a rent-a-cop and use the leverage of that position to sadistically abuse his victims and orchestrate perfect burglary schemes. Unfortunately for the three characters mentioned above, he wasn’t willing to settle for his comfortable scams.
The perpetrator of these perfect burglaries was a Cuban boat-person. Following the real-life propaganda that all of the refugees from Cuba to Florida during this period were convicts and low-life scum that Castro was trying to unload, Elmore Leonard gives us Cundo Rey. Rey is a refugee from the boat-lift era who led a mutiny against the captain who was bringing the crowd to freedom and helped to murder said captain. When not performing B&Es at the bequest of Richard Nobles, Rey can usually be found dancing as an exotic dancer for ladies nights at straight bars and wannabe ladies nights at certain gay bars. He’s bold, cold, calloused, and lots smarter than Nobles (even smarter than the usual Hispanic criminal stereotype in this genre). The question is whether he’s smarter than LaBrava.
La Brava is brain candy, a tele-play on a page. It isn’t vintage Leonard (in my opinion) and the plot is as transparent as the motive of a guy with a cheater mark in a singles bar. The cast of characters was intriguing enough to keep me going, but I didn’t want to see the plot lines converge where I knew they were going to meet. If you like television mysteries (and I do, sometimes), this little thriller isn’t bad reading, but it’s more of a light thriller than a mystery.
The protagonist is Joe LaBrava. Joe is a former Secret Service agent who underwent a tremendous amount of training in order to watch television while watching over former first lady, Bess Truman. He leaves undercover work to follow his bliss in photography and discovers that his landlord is friends with a movie star on which he had experienced a crush since his adolescent years. It would have been like me meeting Hayley Mills (the girl slightly older than me who was cast as a teen star as I was reaching puberty) or Mary Tyler Moore (having had a crush on the Dick Van Dyke version) in real life. [Actually, I have met some female stars in real life who looked gorgeous on the big screen but didn’t exactly have the same effect on me as the film star has on the protagonist in this novel.] Because he has a real nostalgic love for the beauty of the “silver screen” (in its glorious black and white years), he specializes in black and white photography as he navigates the shades of gray in this story.
The supporting character sine qua non is an old Jewish fellow, something of a Meyer Lansky-type except that his connection with the mob was as a very successful bookie. Maurice Zola knows everybody and seems incredibly comfortable in his own skin. Everybody seems to like him and, at the same time, everyone seems to underestimate him. His contacts, influence, and resources are vital to the set-up of the plot, but a lot of his life seems to be spent living in the memories of what South Beach was like in the mob-run years.
Jean Shaw is the former movie star, the “bad girl” brunette movie star who always seemed to lose the guy to the “good girl” blonde (although I seem to remember more cases where the hair color is switched and the brunette was the “good girl”). As LaBrava tries to rescue this (in a role-reversal for Jean) damsel in distress, it looks like she could end up with the right guy, after all.
But no “noir” novel or even something as simple as a melodrama works without a villain. In this case, the two villains are also interesting. One is a psychopathic criminal named Richard Nobles who managed to get his record expunged by cooperating with federal authorities (ie. snitching). With a clean record, he has been able to get a job as a rent-a-cop and use the leverage of that position to sadistically abuse his victims and orchestrate perfect burglary schemes. Unfortunately for the three characters mentioned above, he wasn’t willing to settle for his comfortable scams.
The perpetrator of these perfect burglaries was a Cuban boat-person. Following the real-life propaganda that all of the refugees from Cuba to Florida during this period were convicts and low-life scum that Castro was trying to unload, Elmore Leonard gives us Cundo Rey. Rey is a refugee from the boat-lift era who led a mutiny against the captain who was bringing the crowd to freedom and helped to murder said captain. When not performing B&Es at the bequest of Richard Nobles, Rey can usually be found dancing as an exotic dancer for ladies nights at straight bars and wannabe ladies nights at certain gay bars. He’s bold, cold, calloused, and lots smarter than Nobles (even smarter than the usual Hispanic criminal stereotype in this genre). The question is whether he’s smarter than LaBrava.
La Brava is brain candy, a tele-play on a page. It isn’t vintage Leonard (in my opinion) and the plot is as transparent as the motive of a guy with a cheater mark in a singles bar. The cast of characters was intriguing enough to keep me going, but I didn’t want to see the plot lines converge where I knew they were going to meet. If you like television mysteries (and I do, sometimes), this little thriller isn’t bad reading, but it’s more of a light thriller than a mystery.
November 2, 2013
I found myself thinking of this book as "early Leonard," which really isn't true--sure, it predates a lot of the stuff by him that I've liked best (Get Shorty, Rum Punch, Out Of Sight) but not by that much. And more importantly, by the time he published La Brava, Leonard had been publishing novels for 30 years. Last Stand At Sabre River, a western novel of Leonard's that I read a few years ago, fits the "early" descriptor much better. And yet, with this book missing much of the dry wit that I got used to in his later novels, it does feel like it comes from an earlier point in his career--back when he was a tougher, darker chronicler of crime. Which is not to say that it strikes me as a lesser work than his later stuff that I spoke highly of earlier--not quite as good, but damn near. Really, you can't go wrong with Elmore Leonard's work, so I would recommend you read anything he has out, and La Brava is certainly no exception. And this book does have the Florida setting that often shows up to such great effect in his later writing, though I'm guessing he hadn't been in Florida long when he wrote this one--the subtler, more understated version of the Hiaasen-esque "bunch of South Florida wackos" feel that creeps into some of his later stuff isn't really in this version of the Miami Beach coastline. But Joseph La Brava is a classic Elmore Leonard hero--a surprisingly intelligent and multi-dimensional tough guy who doesn't want to fight but will mess you up if he has to. I never tire of watching these guys interact with the crazy, stupid, and unpredictable outlaws that populate Leonard's crime novels, and there is plenty of that here as well. Plus a reclusive former movie star, a very private old man who is secretly loaded, the outskirts of a decadent art scene, and more. What I'm saying is: this book is a blast. Read it. I haven't told you jack shit about the plot, but you're better off unspoiled anyway. Just trust me.
June 29, 2020
The reason this only has two stars is perhaps related to my high expectations for Leonard's books, which usually have some laugh out loud moments and a propulsive readability. Here, nothing quite seemed to work. I was bored by La Brava as a character (and extremely uninterested in his multiple romances), and while the concept of a former film noir actress living out one of her old plots should have been fun, it just felt flat. Nor do I approve of the way the one person responsible for everything gets off consequence free, while the peons in the affair suffer much worse ends. I suppose they can't all be winners--but for Loeonard, I really thought otherwise!
July 7, 2023
One of Leonard's best. All of the characters are compelling and complex, and the cinema angle (including photography) works superbly. Perhaps his most thoughtful book.
June 24, 2013
This was a huge disappointment and it seems clear to me that Elmore Leonard is just phoning them in now because this was a book with no surprises, no surprising twists and only lukewarm dialogue, by Elmore Leonard standards. It may satisfy some of the diehards who'll be willing to forgive anything but for me, it was just a fast read and see you later. (Nice red cover, though, that oughtta sell a few extras.)
September 16, 2019
Within the first chapter i realised i'd read this before. About 20-30 years ago i 'discovered' Elmore Leonard and read what i thought were most of his books. Unfortunately, i didn't make a note of those i had read, but rereading them is no hardship. As it happens i couldn't recall the ending of this story, so it WAS like reading it for the first time.
Very enjoyable. Recommended. 4 1/2 stars.
Very enjoyable. Recommended. 4 1/2 stars.
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