Elmore Leonard's "RIDING THE RAP"

A book review by Dennis D. McDonald

I was scanning through audiobooks available from my public library to listen to and chanced across Elmore Leonard’s 1995 novel RIDING THE RAP. My friend Charlie had been recommending that I read an Elmore Leonard novel and RIDING THE RAP was available so I downloaded it.

I didn’t like the first half. I found the characters unlikable and it takes that long for the action to really start to gel. By the second half, though, Leonard’s writing style took over and propelled it forward.

Given the quality of the reading it was very easy to visualize the story despite Leonard’s trademark spare writing style. Conversations are very well written and the plot threads become more and more intertwined as things progress.

I’ll give this a B- and will probably try another Leonard novel again in the future.

Review copyright (c) 2019 by Dennis D. McDonald