Tishomingo Blues by Elmore Leonard (2002)

Reader's Annotation

Daredevil diver Dennis Lenahan witnesses a Dixie Mafia hit from the top of his eighty-foot ladder.

Summary

 Dennis Lenahan makes his living as a high diver. He likes to tell people that if you put a fifty-cent piece on the floor and look down at it, that's what the tank looks like from the top of that eighty-foot steel ladder. He mostly puts on his show at amusement parks but now he's about to start an eight-week gig at the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino in Tunica, Mississippi.

Before he's even had a chance to do his first show, Dennis witnesses a hit by the Dixie Mafia from the top rung of his ladder. The Dixie Mafia know what he saw, and so does Robert Taylor, a Detroit gangster who wants to move in on Dixie territory. Robert recruits Dennis to join him against the Dixie Mafia in a Civil War re-enactment to be played out with real bullets, a true showdown between the North and the South.

Evaluation

This is a typical Elmore Leonard hard-boiled crime novel with the usual brilliantly realistic dialog, very stupid criminals, and not-so-bad guys versus the really bad guys plot. If you like Tishomingo Blues, try Leonard's Get Shorty and Freaky Deaky. Then when you've had your fill of Elmore Leonard, try the Hap and Leonard series by Joe R. Lansdale (starting with Savage Season) and the Parker novels of Richard Stark (a pseudonym of Donald E. Westlake).

If books with violence, foul language, and sex bother you, avoid Elmore Leonard.

Genres: Mystery/Crime
Subgenres: Hard-Boiled Crime