Raylan Givens, an ace detective in the Raymond Chandler mould, has encountered just about every shakedown artist and palooka in his native East Kentucky. His creator, Elmore Leonard, is a maestro of American noir; Raylan (Weidenfeld, £18.99), his latest thriller, presents a familiar impasto of choppy, street-savvy slang and hip-jive patter that verges on a kind of poetry.
Typically, Raylan charts a murky underworld where criminals are in cahoots with politicians, and where murder is a consequence of this corruption. In his curl-toed cowboy boots, Federal Marshal Givens is summoned to investigate a case of trafficking in human body-parts.
A man has been found moribund in a bathtub with his kidneys apparently removed by surgery. Suspicion falls on Pervis ‘Speed’ Crowe, a 70-year-old marijuana dealer, and his two layabout stoner sons. Crowe denies all knowledge. ‘My sons farm reefer’, he tells Raylan, ‘they don’t cut into a man’s body parts.
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