Rum Punch
And so to the book part of the book-film club1.
I don’t think I’ve ever read any Elmore Leonard before and I found his snappy witty style easy to get along with. You can’t miss a word or try to speed through it - sometimes everything happens in three sentences - but it’s so short and to the point that I read it in a few hours.
It’s no surprise that this was chosen by Tarantino to make into a film. Right out of the gate the setting, the dialogue and the characters read like one of his screenplays.
There’s a little more meat on the bones here compared to Jackie Brown. Notably the Max Cherry character actually has a soon-to-be-ex-wife on the go and it does explain a couple of things that happen that pass off as coincidences in the film.
Yes you could skip the book, the film is almost the same, but that would mean missing out on an atmospheric joy of a crime thriller.