LaBrava

A Novel

By: Elmore Leonard

Narrated by: Anthony Rey Perez

New York Times bestselling author Elmore Leonard delivers his trademark blend of action, sex, violence, humor, and hard-boiled suspense in this thrilling crime classic, LaBrava.

Joe La Brava is an ex–Secret Service agent who gets mixed up in a South Miami Beach scam involving a redneck former cop, a Cuban hit man who moonlights as a go-go dancer, and a one-time movie queen whose world is part make-believe, part deadly dangerous.

Fast-moving, pitch-perfect, and utterly irresistible, LaBrava is, “vintage Leonard: a blend of the true-to-life and the totally make-believe, the cinematic and the suspenseful, the world we know and a whole lot of worlds we’re glad we don’t. Only Leonard can concoct such a potent cocktail.” (USA Today).

Great reader.

EL has matured in his long, excellent writing career. This is a clean and sharp as it gets. Hemingway comes to mind.

The narration was incredibly good!

Good plot, excellent character development. Nobody can beat Elmore in this genre. Love his subtle humor.

Excruciating performance

I’ve seen LaBrava listed by several critics as one of Leonard’s best, but the performance soured the experience for me.

The reader pronounces his d’s with a t sound, it’s a little annoying, but I could get through it. It’s the choice he makes to differentiate the older supporting character Maurice, reading his lines at half speed, that made me want to rip my hair out.

I’ve listened to 800 books. I feel so strongly about my disappointment im writing this, my first review, to warn others.

Good one

As always with Elmore, the dialogue is top notch. Great plot, great story; living, breathing characters with relatable thought processes played out on the page or in this case on the Audible app. The narrator mispronounced a couple of things and has a sort of whispery voice, but otherwise he seems like the right guy for the job. I’m sad it’s over - gonna have to go back and re-listen to some more EL books.

The story was mundane

I usually like Gilmore Leonard stuff, but this story had a very, very, very weak plot. It was over nuance for such a mundane and poorly written story. I hope his other books are better.