Tishomingo Blues - Softcover

Leonard, Elmore

3.71

9,333 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060083948 ISBN 13: 9780060083946

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2002

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“Leonard delivers a certifiable masterpiece of such twisted ingenuity that he transcends even his own bad self....Tishomingo Blues is that good.”

—Baltimore Sun

Crime fiction Grand Master Elmore Leonard heads to the Deep South for a bracing dose of Tishomingo Blues—a wild, Leonard-esque ride featuring gamblers, mobsters, murderers, high divers, and Civil War re-enactors that the New York Times Book Review calls, “Leonard’s best work since Get Shorty.” Sparkling with trademark “Dutch” Leonard dialogue so sharp it could cut you, Tishomingo Blues is classic mystery, mayhem, and gritty noir fun from “the coolest, hottest thriller writer in America” (Chicago Tribune).

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Review:

Take a high diver who witnesses a murder from his perch 80 feet above a Mississippi casino. Add a cooler-than-thou con artist from Detroit who's out to take over the Dixie mafia's lucrative Gulf Coast drug business. Throw in a crooked deputy sheriff and an honest state cop. Put them all in costume along with a bunch of other "reenactors" bent on refighting an important Civil War battle, season with plenty of historic detail, and you've got all the classic ingredients of an Elmore Leonard novel--except for drama, suspense, or mystery, that is. This is a rib-tickler in the Carl Hiaasen/Dave Barry tradition rather than the kind of thriller Leonard wrote before Hollywood discovered him. As the author himself explains, his intent was to entertain himself by gathering an odd assortment of characters, building a story as they bump heads, and seeing what happens. And as usual, he carries it off with style, wit, and brio. Readers will be casting the inevitable movie in their heads (Samuel L. Jackson is a lock for Robert, who glides into town in a flashy Jag and gets the action going) as they chuckle their way to the last hilarious page. --Jane Adams

From the Back Cover:

Daredevil Dennis Lenahan has brought his act to the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino in Tunica, Mississippi -- diving off an eighty-foot ladder into nine feet of water for the amusement of gamblers, gangsters, and luscious belles. His riskiest feat, however, was witnessing a Dixie-style mob execution while atop his diving platform. Robert Taylor saw the hit also. A blues-loving Detroit hustler touring the Southland in a black Jaguar, Taylor's got his own secret agenda re the "Cornbread Cosa Nostra," and he wants Dennis in on the game. But there's a lot more in Robert Taylor's pocket than a photo of his lynched great-grandfather. And high-diver Dennis could be about to take a long, fatal fall -- right into a mess of hoop skirts, Civil War play-acting ... and more trouble than he ever dreamed possible.

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