Chili Palmer, the protagonist of Leonard's 1990 novel Get Shorty, reappears in this new one. As everyone who has read the book, or more likely seen the film with John Travolta as Chili, will know, our hero is an extremely street-wise, cool dude, a loan-shark operating out of Florida who followed a defaulting mark to Las Vegas and then on to Hollywood, became involved in the film industry, and stayed.
When Be Cool opens, Chili is the producer of a successful movie called Get Leo and the chief motivator behind a not-so-successful follow-up, Get Lost. Invited to lunch by a boyhood friend, Tommy Athens, ostensibly to discuss a movie based on Tommy's early life as a gangster in Brooklyn and then his successful transformation into independent record promoter, Chili is on his way back from the toilet when he sees a character in an unbecoming wig drive up and shoot Tommy in the head.
Luckily the detective in charge of the subsequent investigation, one Darryl Holmes, falls under Chili's particular brand of smooth patter and leaves him free to carry on with his nefarious lifestyle. This involves taking over Tommy's studio, called NTL (for Nothing to Lose) Records, with the agreement of the late impresario's widow, the ultra mini-skirted and loath-to-grieve Edie.
No use having a promotion studio without having someone to promote, so Chili signs up the lead singer from a group called Chicks International. This is Linda Moon, 28, curvaceous and able to write her own songs. In order to get her on to the music scene, Chili is forced to deal with the chief bottle-washer on the indie promotion merry-go-round, Nicky Carcaterra. This also entails involving Nicky's some-time partner, Raji, and his giant gay Samoan bodyguard, Elliot.
Raji, who had been Linda's manager, naturally feels aggrieved when Chili muscles his way in and steals what he considers a hot property from under his nose, so he hires an over-the-hill hit-man called Joe Loop to eliminate Chili with extreme prejudice. In making his attempt on our hero's life, Joe mistakenly shoots a colleague of the guy who originally assassinated Tommy Athens, a Russian mobster in the protection business.
If things aren't complicated enough, the gay Samoan then begins hassling Chili, demanding that he put him in a movie. This forces Chili to ask a favour of Elaine Levin, the woman in his life, who also happens to be chief executive of Tower Film Productions. If Chile refuses to oblige Elliot, then he will throw him out of a high window on the instructions of the more and more demonic Raji. Whew! Another fine mess, or merely a routine Elmore Leonard plot?
In an interview recently, Leonard admitted that he wrote Be Cool with one eye on a film sequel, and the story goes that Travolta has already signed up to re-play the part of Chili. To be honest, this latest offering is more or less a reprise of the earlier Get Shorty with the music business substituted for the movies.
But it still bears the felicitous Leonard quick-fire and smart-ass dialogue, his insight into underworld idioms and slang, and his extraordinary ability in creating off-the-wall villains. Now in his 70s, Leonard shows no sign of flagging, and long may he continue to pen his unique brand of gangster fiction.
Vincent Banville is a critic and novelist