Out Of Sight - Hardcover

Leonard, Elmore

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385308485 ISBN 13: 9780385308489

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 1996

Synopsis

In his latest work, the unrivaled master of the crime novel once again breaks all the rules as he redefines the standards of the art. Out of Sight crackles with originality and wicked brilliance, displaying all the razor-sharp dialogue, inimitable wit, and memorable characters who have become the signature of "our greatest crime novelist...the best in the business" (The Washington Post).

Deputy U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco is just stopping off to serve a summons and complaint on Florida's Glades Prison. She's all decked out in her black Chanel suit and heels, but ready with her pump-action shotgun when the breakout begins, minutes after she pulls into the prison parking lot. But she's not ready for Jack Foley, the celebrity con who disarms her, invites her to climb into the trunk of her own car, and then joins her as his pal Buddy guns the blue Caprice onto the highway, heading for freedom. Squeezed into a trunk littered with handcuffs and tactical gear, the escapee bank robber is a perfect gentleman who shares her passion for movies and wonders if it would be different if they'd met in a bar.

Karen escapes and they do meet again. Only this time she's part of the federal task force hunting the escapees. This time she's sitting in the bar of the Detroit Westin, nursing a sour mash and watching a blizzard outside. This time Foley finds her. First some cocktails and conversation. Then Time Out. In Karen's suite. "You like taking risks," she says. "So do I."

Next morning Foley's gone and Karen's out to get him. She cruises Detroit's mean street and boxing hangouts looking for Foley, Buddy, and a hardcase named Maurice, one step behind them as they plot the biggest heist of their careers--and a double cross that will leave only one man holding the goods. This time Karen means business as she races toward a hair-raising climax that careens pell-mell into suspense-writing history.

About this title

About the Author

Elmore Leonard has written thirty-five novels, including such bestsellers as Glitz, Get Shorty, Riding the Rap, Pronto, Rum Punch, Maximum Bob, and Cub Libre. His 35th novel, Be Cool, was published in February 1999. Many of his books have been made into movies or are currently under option. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

From the Back Cover

t work, the unrivaled master of the crime novel once again breaks all the rules as he redefines the standards of the art. Out of Sight crackles with originality and wicked brilliance, displaying all the razor-sharp dialogue, inimitable wit, and memorable characters who have become the signature of "our greatest crime novelist...the best in the business" (The Washington Post).

Deputy U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco is just stopping off to serve a summons and complaint on Florida's Glades Prison. She's all decked out in her black Chanel suit and heels, but ready with her pump-action shotgun when the breakout begins, minutes after she pulls into the prison parking lot. But she's not ready for Jack Foley, the celebrity con who disarms her, invites her to climb into the trunk of her own car, and then joins her as his pal Buddy guns the blue Caprice onto the highway, heading for freedom. Squeezed into a trunk littered with handcuffs and tactical gear, the escapee ba

Reviews

Leonard's criminal farces tend to get derailed when his hero is a lady (Maximum Bob, 1991, etc.), and it happens again in his 33rd novel, a sweetly meandering fantasy spun out of the cutest meeting on record. Legendary bank robber Jack Foley has worked out an ingenious prison break. He'll blow the whistle on Jos‚ Chirino's crowd tunneling under the perimeter fence, promote a guard's uniform, go through the tunnel himself, and head straight for his old pal Buddy Bragg, waiting with a getaway car. But Buddy's brought along car thief Glenn Michaels, and deputy US marshal Karen Sisco, who knows Glenn by sight, also happens to be on the scene. She pulls a shotgun on Foley, who loses his heart to her after Buddy disarms her and he's stashed in the trunk with her for the getaway. Before they part, he gallantly tells her to ``have your clothes cleaned and send me the bill.'' Karen can't believe the nerve of this guy, but then--after she gets a slot on the task force that has tracked Foley to Detroit, where he and his increasingly violent playmates plan to kidnap moneyed ex-con inside trader Richard Ripley--she starts to fall for him, too. Leonard has a lot of lazy fun setting up a cockeyed array of good guys (like Karen's p.i. father Marshall, who worries that her stakeouts with Florida state cop Ray Nicolet are too much like dates) and bad (such as the homicidal Maurice ``Snoopy'' Miller and his brother Kenneth, who likes to tussle with females). But for all the hip, loco dialogue he scatters as Karen and Foley improve their relationship while plotting against each other like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, he never really seems to have his heart in this caper. A master coasting is still a master, but nobody will take this for top-drawer Leonard. (Film rights to Universal; author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

YA. This novel stands out for two reasons: one is Deputy U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco and the other is the sense of untarnished justice. A 29-year-old Florida native, Karen wears Chanel suits and carries a Sig Sauer .38 pistol as her "evening-wear piece." She also carts around leg irons, handcuffs, and a pump-action shotgun in the trunk of her car. She will use the weapons if necessary, and fearlessly, but its her brain that is her primary weapon. While waiting to serve a summons at Florida's Glades Prison, she meets Jack Foley, bank robber, escaping from a tunnel. He and his ex-con friend, Buddy, who is waiting for him, toss her in the trunk of her car. Foley climbs in with her and the story begins. Jack is attracted to Karen; admires her wit, courage, and knowledge of old movies; and wonders what might have happened if they had met under "different circumstances." Karen finds herself unaccountably attracted to him, as well, but she always sees him for exactly what he is. Nevertheless, she escapes, Foley and Buddy go on to become involved in a crime beyond their control, and Karen relentlessly tracks their movements. YAs will enjoy this fast-paced novel that features a heroine who is a delightful stereotype breaker.?Carol DeAngelo, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Meanwhile, three other Leonard books, Last Stand at Saber River, Touch and Pronto, are in film or TV production.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

If it's Elmore Leonard, there's bound to be an edge: comedy threatening to turn tragic as characters try to scratch itches they can't quite reach. This time there's so much scratching, you'd think the story was set in a swamp. Actually, it begins in one, as legendary bank robber Jack Foley escapes from prison in Florida's Everglades only to find himself in the trunk of a car alongside federal marshall Karen Sisco, an involuntary participant. Jack has been in prison a long time so the idea of being squashed up against an attractive female, even in less than ideal circumstances, has its merits, while Karen, who's always had a fondness for courting danger, feels a little frisson herself. Both escape the trunk without damage, leaving Karen to track Jack on the road to Detroit, ostensibly to apprehend him but maybe to get to know him better. Jack is even more smitten, so much so that while he's supposed to be helping a couple of con cronies plan a quick score in the Detroit suburbs, he's actually daydreaming about what it would have been like if he'd met Karen in a more conventional way. There's the edge that drives this exhilarating if melancholy tragicomedy: the yearning to be somebody else, to be able to do it a different way. Jack reminds Karen of Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man: "both real guys who seemed tired of who they were, but couldn't do anything about it." You don't have to be a bank robber to feel that way, of course, which is why an Elmore Leonard edge cuts in several directions. A modern master still cruising at the top of his form. Bill Ott

U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco, 29, wearing a $3500 Chanel suit, meets escaping con, bank robber Jack Foley, 47, and can't get him out of her mind. The attraction is mutual, and as their paths diverge and converge, the Leonard-ian plot predictably gets more convoluted and the characters more bizarre. Foley and Co.'s hit on the house of an ex-junk bond trader who reportedly has a million stashed away there brings the star-crossed lovers together once more, but without Leonard's typical happy ending for the "good" bad guys. Scheduled for filmdom by the Get Shorty team, this has the requisite quirkiness but lacks the trademark black humor. Still, you'll want it for your Leonard fans.
-?Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Karen thought they'd put her inside and leave and she felt around to find her handgun, quick, the Sig Sauer, before they closed the trunk lid and she'd have to kick at it and yell until someone let her out.  There, she felt the holster, slipped the pistol out and closed her hand around the grip ready to go for it, six hollow points in the magazine and one in the throat, ready to come around shooting if she had to.  But now the one in the filthy guard uniform gave her a shove and was getting in with her--she couldn't believe it--crawling in to wedge her between the wall of the trunk and his body pressed against her back, like they were cuddled up in bed, the guy bringing his arm around now to hold her to him, and she didn't have room to turn and stick the gun in his face.

The trunk lid came down and they were in darkness, total, not a crack or pinpoint of light showing, dead silent until the engine came to life, the car moving now, turning out of the lot to the road that went out to the highway. Karen pictured it, remembering the orange grove and a maintenance building, then farther along the road frame houses and yards where some of the prison personnel lived.

His voice in the dark, breathing on her, said, "You comfy?"

The con acting cool, nothing to lose.  Karen was holding the Sig Sauer between her thighs, protecting it, her skirt hiked up around her hips.  She said, "If I could have a little more room..."

"There isn't any."

She wondered if she could get her feet against the front wall, push off hard and twist at the same time and shove the gun into him.

Maybe.  But then what?

She said, "I'm not much of a hostage if no one knows I'm here."

She felt his hand move over her shoulder and down her arm.

"You aren't a hostage, you're my zoo-zoo, my treat after five months of servitude.  Somebody pleasant and smells good for a change.  I'm sorry if I smell like a sewer, it's the muck I had to crawl through, all that decayed matter."

She felt him moving, squirming around to get comfortable.

"You sure have a lot of shit in here.  What's all this stuff? Handcuffs, chains...What's this can?"

"For your breath," Karen said.  "You could use it.  Squirt some in your mouth."

"You devil, it's Mace, huh? What've you got here, a billy? Use it on poor unfortunate offenders...Where's your gun, your pistol?"

"In my bag, in the car." She felt his hand slip from her arm to her hip and rest there and she said, "You know you don't have a chance of making it. Guards are out here already, they'll stop the car."

"They're off in the cane by now chasing Cubans."

His tone quiet, unhurried, and it surprised her.

"I timed it to slip between the cracks, you might say.  I was even gonna blow the whistle myself if I had to, send out the amber alert, get them running around in confusion for when I came out of the hole.  Boy, it stunk in there."

"I believe it," Karen said.  "You've ruined a thirty-five-hundred-dollar suit my dad gave me."

She felt his hand move down her thigh, fingertips brushing her pantyhose, the way her skirt was pushed up.

"I bet you look great in it, too.  Tell me why in the world you ever became a federal marshal, Jesus.  My experience with marshals, they're all beefy guys, like your big-city dicks."

"The idea of going after guys like you," Karen said, "appealed to me."

"To prove something? What're you, one of those women's rights activists, out to bust some balls? I haven't been close to a woman like you in months, good-looking, smart...I think, man, here's my reward for doing without, leading a clean, celibate life in there, and you turn out to be a ballbuster.   Tell me it ain't so."

Edition details

• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385308485
• ISBN 13: 9780385308489
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296