Get Shorty

A Novel

By: Elmore Leonard

Narrated by: Joe Mantegna

New York Times Bestselling Author

“Brilliant...impressive...superb.” —Washington Post Book World

“A Hollywood hit….Taut, inimitable prose and characters who could have only sprung from the mind of Elmore Leonard.” —Detroit News

The classic New York Times bestseller that introduced Chili Palmer—a masterful social comedy that happens to be about criminals (and other fast operators). Now brought to life with the calm and authoritative narration of Joe Mantegna.

The Chicago Tribune has dubbed Elmore Leonard, “the coolest, hottest writer in America.” In the same league as the legendary great ones—John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain—the “King Daddy of crime writers” (Seattle Times) demonstrates his remarkable mastery with Get Shorty, one of the most adored of his forty-plus novels. The basis of the hit movie starring John Travolta and Danny DeVito, Get Shorty chronicles the over-the-top, sometimes violent Hollywood misadventures of a Florida mob loan shark who chases a deadbeat client all the way to Tinseltown and decides to stick around and make movies. Get Shorty’s shylock protagonist, Chili Palmer, is a truly inspired creation—as memorable as another unforgettable Leonard hero, U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens of the hit TV series Justified—and readers will relish his moves and countermoves in this electrifying, funny, bullet train-paced winner from “the greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever!” (New York Times Book Review)

A clever idea for a story

Real-life action becomes the idea for a screenplay. Clever and fun to read. Makes me want to watch the movie version now.

I like Mr Montagna

But he wasn’t right for this. Really monotonous. I have no more words so I’m tying till I hit 15. I live almost everything Elmore Leonard has written

Boring narration.

Reader speaks in monotone and you can’t tell the difference between characters. This is a snappy story and should be read as such.

Go Lakers

A Classic Elmore Leonard novel very well narrated. Glad I spent the credit on this it was a fun listening experience.

Quirky

While I've seen several adaptations of Leonard's work, this is the first time I've read one of his novels. I can see why his work is regularly adapted; his sensibilities are quite cinematic and his dialog is quite strong.

The story starts in Miami, 12 years in the past, then moves to present-day Miami, then Las Vegas, and finally spends most of its time in Los Angeles. Note that there is very little about those locations that actually impacts the sense of place in the story.

The plot here is a bit of a mess, involving some gangsters of various flavors and a bunch of movie industry people who end up in each others' business. There are at least two movie treatments involved, and the movie treatments end up interacting with the real-life story. And while the ending resolves the plot adequately, it's perhaps the least believable part of the story.

That said, the character work is excellent. Leonard does a brilliant job of presenting characters that are Hollywood-believable. Which is to say, they are memorable, plausible, and larger than life.

The audiobook is voiced by Joe Mantegna, who is perhaps the perfect voice for the protagonist, Chili Palmer. He gets the attitude and personality of the character brilliantly.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes the genre, even though it does have some flaws.