52 Pickup

We picked the wrong guy, Leo Frank said That s the whole thing We picked the wrong fucking guy They want Harry s money.Harry Mitchell did everything that he was supposed to do He was a World War Two ace fighter pilot who came back from the war and started his own manufacturing company that employs hundreds of people He married well His wife Barbara keeps herself in shape with jogging and playing tennis and is still a very attractive women Everything was fine until Harry met Cynthia,Cini,Cin,Sin. [...]

Blackmailers have factory owner Harry Mitchell over a barrel Either he pays them 105,000 a year or they turn over an incriminating film of him cheating on his wife to the police and press, and , if he doesn t pay up Too bad Harry Mitchell has ideas of his ownEl Leonard sure knows how to weave a serpentine tale, doesn t he He takes a story that seems simple on the surface, that of some blackmailers hitting up a pigeon for money, and turns it into something else all together It was written in 1974 [...]

52 Pickup El Leonard s Card Game If you want it, here it is, come and get itMake your mind up fastIf you want it, anytime, I can give itBut you better hurry cause it may not lastDid I hear you sayThat there must be a catch Will you walk awayFrom a fool and his money Paul McCartney, 1970Ever played 52 Pickup It only takes two players A standard deck will do It s a joke, man The dealer s in on the trick The stooge is the pigeon, the patsy The dealer shuffles the deck Ready The dealer throws the de [...]

Harry Mitchell could be a poster boy for the Greatest Generation He was a World War II ace fighter pilot and afterwards started his own manufacturing firm that s become a successful business while he and his wife Barbara enjoyed a happy marriage and raised two kids.Ah, but the mid life crisis has made than one man stupid, and Harry has a fling with a woman half his age Just as he is about to break it off, Harry is confronted by a trio of blackmailers who have films that show his infidelity They [...]

It s a shame, ain t it Everybody is trying to mess everybody That s rich, coming from the mouth of a small time crook, trying to blackmail a middle aged guy having an affair with a much younger woman, but it is a rather good resume of the plot of this El Leonard novel Actually, it could be said it is a fair assessment of most E.L crime capers, where nothing goes according to plan and things go pear shaped in an ugly way with obstinate regularity.I was curious about the title, but it only becomes [...]

This is the third earlier Leonard book that I have picked up, and like the other two MOONSHINE WARS and MR MAJESTYK , it is a solid read Fast, violent, and fun.All three books share one very distinct Leonardian quality precision There is nothing extraneous in any of the stories Leonard tells only what is necessary and then moves on It keeps the novels short and fast.I would also argue that same quality keeps the books from reaching past a ceiling they always seem to hit While they are good, the [...]

3.5Classic El Leonard I was really into this book at the start, impressed as usual by the character dialogue and building excitement to the story Unfortunately, the build up faltered and the story, which began to lag toward the end, came to an abrupt end with an anticlimactic close as does this review.

I ve gotten really into genre lately which must surprise those who ve heard me pontificate so much on Plato and on Nazis Well, actually, not into genre, so much, as just into crime mystery spy novels I still hate Sci Fi, despite my somewhat heroic efforts to read a mass of it a year or so back Maybe it s an age thing.But perhaps it s not so surprising, after all Many years ago, I learned to my great astonishment that my professor was an avid reader of mystery novels I don t know whom he read he [...]

Just like something straight from an episode of The Twilight Zone, the main character s bad decision comes back to get him in the form of a home movie that captures his love affair He s being blackmailed, and if he puts even one foot wrong, it ll mean that his wife sees the film Or could it mean something even darker, like murder Fifty Two Pickup is a gripping, chilling and exciting novel and totally unpredictable It s got interesting characters, a good plot and it s really worth reading.

We picked the wrong guy, Leo Frank said That s the whole thing We picked the wrong fucking guy Oh Leo, you and your two low life friends did indeed pick the wrong guy to blackmail this time I read 52 Pickup as a monthly read in the Pulp Fiction group here on and I m really glad I decided to participate This was such a well crafted and well written crime story The characters and their actions were realistic and it didn t come across as phony or one dimensional as often these tales are I have not [...]

It all started with Timothy Olyphant Timothy plays Raylan Givens in the FX series Justified He s also my latest mid life crisis, as anyone who gets my updates will know That series is based on characters created by El Leonard, and specifically a short story called Fire in the Hole.So after watching 2 seasons of Justified all in the course of 3 weeks, but who s counting I was curious I vaguely remembered that the movies Get Shorty and Out of Sight were based on his books, but until I searched him [...]

from the Avon paperback back cover blurb Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell was having a mid life crisis He had an attractive wife at home He had a voluptuous girlfriend on the side And now he had a problem with porn movies.He was in one.A man with a stocking over his head and a.38 in his hand wanted a hundred grand to keep Harry s picture out of circulation But the hoods behind this blackmail scam made a big mistake when they fingered Harry Mitchell for their pigeonWith El Leonard it s hard to [...]

4 star Review 52 Pickup El LeonardDISCLAIMER My first mystery read in a long long time warrants a biased review at that.Set in the crime scene of Detroit, this mystery noir novel chronicles the life of Harry Mitchell, a happy matrimony man businessman, who s had a slip up of sorts for the first time in his life in the form of a secret affair He encounters trouble with a few blackmailers who threaten to expose his dalliance if he doesn t pay up the ransom they demand The rest of the novel depicts [...]

I thought my first El Leonard novel should be one that A Had an impact on his career and B Was set in Detroit You could add to that, maybe, a book of his that was made into a movie This book doesn t disappoint Not as tightly plotted as, say a Westlake book, but moves along I liked it.

This was a 5 star thriller that fell apart at the end 52 Pickup was written in the early 70s, so you have Leonard just as things are really starting to roll for him Great dialogue, great characters, with crime, adultery, and porn spicing the stew It s also one of Leonard s most brutal novels There is one murder that is just shocking, but there is also the suggestion of sodomized rape as part of a kidnapping You really hate the bad guys in this one The hero, Harry Mitchell, is standard flawed goo [...]

My reading of an El Leonard book was a long time coming And what a nice one to start with The story is straight out of a film noir movie, man gets caught cheating on his wife by three hoodlums who blackmail him for 100,000 things get out of hand and revenge is taken While the subplots do get in the way of the main story wife deals with husband s infidelity and union manager uses thug before contract talks add very little in comparison to what they subtract from the book , this worked wonderfully [...]

FIFTY TWO PICKUP 1974 El LeonardThere s a big smile on my face the Library of America has just published the first in a projected three volume set of the novels of El Leonard Fifty two Pickup is the first of Dutch s novels to be included I haven t read it for years and years, and forgot how good it was, and still is It s the story of a businessman who made a big mistake by stepping out on his wife for the first time after twenty some years He has to face the music with his wife, but he also has [...]

52 Pick Up is the late El Leonard s tale of one Detroit businessman s dealings with a trio of blackmailing thugs When his adulterous affair is caught on tape by the three men, Harry Mitchell is forced to either pay up one hundred thousand dollars or deal with the consequences If you know El Leonard novels, then you know that there is only one choice for Mitchell As the blurb on the back cover divulges Harry Mitchell doesn t get mad he gets even For some reason, I found this book to be sort of un [...]

The Dutch man always delivers.One cheating spouse and three blackmailers with a reel of film containing enough Kodak moments to make even Bill Clinton blush and that s only the beginning.This was made into two movies One the lesser known The Ambassador and the 1986 Roy Scheider flick Talk about Blue Thunder youtu A_iyRHLL628youtu 7GpvpJ63DnkMy ONLY complaint is with KINDLE the total page count for the newest trade paperback is 212 pp but they have the Kindle edition linked to an older mass marke [...]

I decided to become a fan of El Leonard after realizing that many entertaining movies I ve seen have come from his books Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Hombre This novel was also made into a movie, though I haven t seen it yet.What I really enjoyed about this book was that dialogue plays a key role in character development, a great technique for showing not telling as we writers are so often advised.And, as with practically all of Leonard s crime books, police and law enforcement play no role, or are [...]

One of El s best in my opinion, and dead on Mr Leonard s frequent formula Joe Average gets mixed up with dumb criminals, almost loses everything, but straightens out the bad guys in a super exciting big finish.warning I LOVE ELMORE LEONARD A successful businessman has an affair and the girl sets him up with her criminal associates for blackmail and extortion But Mr Businessman is a former combat pilot and like all great Leonard heroes refuses to take shit from anybody Look out bad guys.Read this [...]

If El Leonard is the greatest living thriller writer as I am told on the back cover of this novel , then I must be tremendously unappreciative I couldn t take a steady diet of his work I often feel punched in the gut by what happens to his characters, even when I believe they sort of deserve what they re going through as some kind of karmic payback or poetic justice In the case of 52 Pick Up, the protagonist finds himself in a bit of a pickle because he couldn t keep his pickle wink, wink, nudge [...]

Flawed but highly readable early crime thriller by the daddy of naturalistic dialogueLocal businessman Harry Mitchell is the respectable, hard working boss of a small Detroit engineering company Happily married to his wife Barbara for twenty two years, he has a mid life crisis affair with a young model from a nudie bar Turns out the model works for some local hoods who start blackmailing Mitchell, threatening to expose him if he doesn t pay them large That s where the novel starts The main story [...]

Synopsis blurbDetroit businessman Harry Mitchell is a self made man, happily married for over twenty two years and a pillar of the community But then he slips he meets a young model and begins an affair One night he arrives at his girlfriend s apartment and finds than he bargained for Two masked men have caught his misdemeanours on camera and now they want a cool hundred grand But they ve picked the wrong man, because Harry Mitchell doesn t get mad he gets even My takeThis was a bit of a trip d [...]

At the risk of earning the wrath of El s vast legions of fans this wasn t all that engrossing of a novel I went into it with high hopes Over the years I ve enjoyed the hell out of the many movies based on his books as well as his screenplays, but I ve never been able to get into any of his novels However notice I did write that it had been years Tastes change as one ages so I tried again thinking perhaps now I would be able to appreciate his fiction Sadly it just didn t do all that much for me F [...]

52 Pickup is exciting Pure and simple The book moves at breakneck speed, setting up the story quickly and never allowing the reader to catch a breath Leonard s dialogue is wonderful and the main reason I loved the book Each character can be grasped and understood quickly thanks to the words they use It is easy to see the coldness within Mitchell due to the words used It is brilliant, absorbing and makes the novel a page turner The final chapter is a little flat and anticlimactic It left we with [...]

There s something fascinating about a regular joe not just getting in over his head in bad trouble, but facing up to it and being enough man to handle it without flinching Finding that we have unexpected strength and the capability to go to violent lengths to protect the things we love is a dream we all harbor, I think.

Read this as part of El Leonard Four Novels of the 1970s Fifty Two Pickup Swag Unknown Man No 89 The Switch but I think I also have it on Kindle standalone, so I figured I d mark it as this as I make my way through the other three books.I don t know, man This is pretty good The set up is great group of three half assed thugs try to scam a presumed rich man out of six figures through blackmail, and then ramp it up with a murder charge when he calls their bluff The half asses are a adult theater o [...]

Mitch is a bit of a mogul He s parlayed a couple of inventions and a good business mind into a prosperous business selling parts to Detroit auto manufacturers Then he gets involved in one of those mid life affairs and ends up paying a much higher price than anyone should It s minor, this thing, and he cuts it off after three months and tells the wife, who isn t pleased, but the marriage should survive However, it soon appears that the couple themselves might not.Three ambitious, though not parti [...]

Mixed feelings about this one I ve read a lot of Leonard s books and generally like them very much The style here is the usual laconic, charming one he emplys in all his books The start is a little slow, as it usually is, but the mundane nature of the main guys life, and the slightly humdrum nature of his indiscretion cheating on his wife with a younger woman didn t really do much for me Then the blackmail plot took off and I got caught up in it, the bad guys while nothing special, no materminds [...]