Post by pimpinainteasy on Sept 22, 2019 6:13:53 GMT
Gold Coast is one of Elmore Leonard's best character studies in the guise of a crime thriller. You could also call it a crime thriller in the guise of a character study. I am not sure. Elmore really does spin a tall tale here.
Karen DiCillia, an attractive widow in her forties, cannot seem to maintain relationships with men. She hits it off with them on the first meeting but then they seem to back off for no good reason. Upon some deep digging, she discovers that her dead Italian gangster husband Frank DiCillia has a contract out on her, which involves hired tough guys threatening any man who would dare to date her. Sure, she can leave this enforced celibacy any time she wants. Nobody would kill her. But then, she would not get any of the millions that Frank has left her. The life he has set up for her includes a beautiful Florida mansion with a maid who serves cocktails, $20,000 a month in interest from bonds and other properties. It simply does not involve getting laid.
Carl Maguire is an ageing and depressed ex-con who knows a bit about art but is stuck in an amusement park job after barely escaping sentencing for a job he carried out for Frank. When he traces Karen down to recover the money that Frank owed him, they fall in love and believe they have a chance to escape. Carl finds Karen to be cold and meandering at times, so he lets loose some interesting theories about humans and animals : "When I worked at the dolphin place down on Marathon, ten years ago, I didn't tell you, did I, I got arrested, for wilful destruction of property? ..... they had wire fences built out from the shore and the breakwater. Like pens they kept the dolphins in. Different pens that were attached to each other. One night I went out there with some tinsnips and cut out the fences.The dolphins swam out to the sea .... but as soon as they got hungry, they all came back to the pens and never left again ..... They didn't want to be saved. They just wanted to play games."
So Elmore Leonard seems to be tackling the theme of freedom. When we say we want to escape our boring lives, do we really want to? Aren't we all just happy in our boring lives, waiting for Friday evening when I can get stone drunk? Playing games like writing reviews on Goodreads for total strangers whom I will never meet, hiding my true personalty. Waiting eagerly for them to press the like button.
Karen DiCillia, an attractive widow in her forties, cannot seem to maintain relationships with men. She hits it off with them on the first meeting but then they seem to back off for no good reason. Upon some deep digging, she discovers that her dead Italian gangster husband Frank DiCillia has a contract out on her, which involves hired tough guys threatening any man who would dare to date her. Sure, she can leave this enforced celibacy any time she wants. Nobody would kill her. But then, she would not get any of the millions that Frank has left her. The life he has set up for her includes a beautiful Florida mansion with a maid who serves cocktails, $20,000 a month in interest from bonds and other properties. It simply does not involve getting laid.
Carl Maguire is an ageing and depressed ex-con who knows a bit about art but is stuck in an amusement park job after barely escaping sentencing for a job he carried out for Frank. When he traces Karen down to recover the money that Frank owed him, they fall in love and believe they have a chance to escape. Carl finds Karen to be cold and meandering at times, so he lets loose some interesting theories about humans and animals : "When I worked at the dolphin place down on Marathon, ten years ago, I didn't tell you, did I, I got arrested, for wilful destruction of property? ..... they had wire fences built out from the shore and the breakwater. Like pens they kept the dolphins in. Different pens that were attached to each other. One night I went out there with some tinsnips and cut out the fences.The dolphins swam out to the sea .... but as soon as they got hungry, they all came back to the pens and never left again ..... They didn't want to be saved. They just wanted to play games."
So Elmore Leonard seems to be tackling the theme of freedom. When we say we want to escape our boring lives, do we really want to? Aren't we all just happy in our boring lives, waiting for Friday evening when I can get stone drunk? Playing games like writing reviews on Goodreads for total strangers whom I will never meet, hiding my true personalty. Waiting eagerly for them to press the like button.
Apart from all this deep stuff, Gold Coast is a really awesome crime thriller with fantastic dialog, clever plot twists involving deliberate misdirection, a great redneck villain and dim-witted Cuban gangsters (Elmore does not seem to think much of Mexican, Indian and Cuban gangsters, atleast in the novels I have read so far). Elmore certainly had great fun writing this book . I bet he had a good laugh and a drink after each of his crime thrillers became a bestseller, telling himself "I fooled them all again."
(10/10)