Elmore Leonard's Fire In The Hole

Book: Fire In The Hole
Author: Elmore Leonard

Goddamn, EL has become my favorite story teller. In this collection, and in every other book I have read, the backdrop is almost always crime. Murder and death lurk about. But there's also more: a love that foregrounds it, along with strong, and sometimes voluble, men and women. Not to mention cool. They are always cool. Also chicken-brained criminals. Definitely that. Despite the tropes, it is hard to predict where the plot is going to take you.

This brings me to “Hanging Out at the Buena Vista”, one of the smaller stories in the collection. Two old people are living it out at a luxury retirement home, just chatting, and maybe even planning to elope. There are no villains here, and no crime, though death makes it presence felt. What it is though is touching, a tender tale that caught me by surprise.

There is not one bad story here. When was the last time that happened? I am currently sampling, rather slowly, Jeyamohan’s Aram, and it is showing similar promise.