The story follows U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens as he races against the Miami mob and a Sicilian hitman to find a runaway bookie hiding away somewhere in Italy... a bookie who already escaped him once before.
Elmore Leonard and the Runaway Bookie
Though logic dictates we ought to be imagining the world of organized crime via large men in suits smoking in dank, poorly-lit basements, the reality is a bit less romantic than that.
As it happens, even organized crime wants to stay under the radar and within the confines of the legal world as much as possible, which means they need to have regular civilians working for them.
Bookmakers have for a long time now been a favourite “venue of investment” for criminal enterprises, being businesses which can deal in large and irregular amounts of cash. Needless to say, not all bookies came out unscathed from such arrangements.
In Pronto by Elmore Leonard, we actually have a bookie who not only works for the mob, but also likes to skim a bit of cash off the top... and the FBI are trying to make him flip over on his boss.
The man in question is Harry Arno, and he was planning to comfortably retire in Italy after his many years of hard service to the mob. However, these recent circumstances have put him between a rock and a hard place, leaving him hunted by virtually every party he could have possibly angered.
Considering his hopeless state of affairs, he decides to go for early retirement and flies away to Italy, in hopes of hiding and being forgotten.
As anyone might have suspected, being on the other side of the ocean didn't make people want to kill him any less.
This is where U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens enters the stage, determined to find the bookie and hopefully save his life before either the Miami mob or a Sicilian hitman can find him first. Arno already escaped the Marshal's custody once before, but what he wouldn't he give to be back in it now.
Raylan's First Party
Looking at Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens series and the popular television show it spawned, “Justified”, it can be a little easy to forget even such a profoundly-developed character had to start off somewhere. Pronto was actually the first novel in which the Marshal was introduced, and while a few elements of his back-story seem to have been cut from later novels as well as the TV show, such as him having two sons, for the most part it's the man we all know and love.
He might not play as big of a role as he does in his later outings, but he remains a focal point of the story and carries it rather well with his dry sense of humour.
In terms of the action we definitely aren't lacking any as the plot progresses rather quickly and sends us globetrotting from the United States to Italy and back.
We get to visit quit a few lush and exotic locales, at least by our Western standards, though we never dwell in any of them for too long. There is a constant sense of forward progression which in the end makes this book feel a lot shorter than it is... I think this book definitely falls under the category of page-turner, an “over before you know it” type of literature.
I'm guessing most people, myself included, have watched the television series before diving into this novel, and so logic dictates it should be hard to imagine the character as anything other than Timothy Olyphant's portrayal on the small screen.
However, I felt the novel did a commendable job at giving its very own unique life to the character, allowing him to stand on his own apart from any other body of work.
A Wild Romp Into Madness
While Raylan Givens might be one of the main points of focus in this novel, there are also numerous other ones which deserve to be discussed. As a matter of fact, the story is actually presented to us through the perspectives of many different characters, allowing for the exploration of divergent viewpoints and some behind-the-scenes knowledge, which always make the events a little more interesting.
This constant switch in perspective further accentuates the quick pace of the book and allows us to easily get acquainted with a diverse cast of characters, all with their own personal stake in the mess surrounding Arno.
As with most of Leonard's novels, the dark humour feels omnipresent and is carried by a majority of the characters. Various quips and sarcastic platitudes populate many of the minds throughout this novel, and while I was afraid they would get stale towards the end of it, I was pleased to see the author was able to maintain their quality throughout the whole thing.
As a matter of fact, the humour is such an integral part of the novel I felt it helped hide and colour some of the darker subject matter, lightening the tone where it might have otherwise gone fully dark.
The Final Verdict
Pronto by Elmore Leonard is a fine introduction to Raylan Givens, unleashing him in a darkly humorous story which captivates and entertains from the first page to the last.
It is somber, comedic and action-packed all at once, a formula the author has certainly perfected over the years. If you would like to witness the Marshal's humble beginnings, get acquainted with Elmore Leonard's style, or are simply searching for a dark humour crime thriller, I highly recommend you give this book a shot.
 | Elmore Leonard (October 11, 1925 – August 20, 2013)Personal site Elmore Leonard was an American screenwriter and novelist. Though he began his career with Westerns, he eventually turned to crime fiction and suspense thrillers, and those include Get Shorty, Mr. Majestyk, and Justified , which has been made into a television series. |
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