When my brother John died, I inherited part of his stash of books by his favorite authors: Elmore Leonard and Larry McMurtry.  I recently finished Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard.  The Leonard book that I previously reviewed was The Hot Kid which rehearsed the Raylan Givens character from Justified in the form of Carlos Webster, a U.S. Marshall with a signature Panama Hat.  It had some fun dialogue, but not a lot else going for it.

Pagan Babies is a better book.  It has better characters.  It opens in Rwanda after the genocide with a Catholic Priest, Father Dunn, who is pretty indifferent to performing his duties.  It turns out that Father Dunn left his home in Detroit and entered the priesthood and to escape being charged with smuggling cigarettes up from Kentucky for the mob.  When Father Dunn’s mother dies, he returns home to raise funds and visit his brother, a lawyer.

The lawyer brother has an assistant, Debbie, returning to Detroit after spending three years in prison because she ran down a thieving former boyfriend in a Ford Escort.  She pulled up to a red light and there he was in the cross-walk.  She wished she’d had a semi-truck, but she made do with the Escort.

Randy has now bilked a wealthy woman out of $3 million dollars and Debbie is determined to recoup the money Randy stole from Debbie and additional compensation for her three years in the pokey.  Father Dunn, naturally, agrees to help.

Leonard is practiced in the art of parceling out information in small bites to keep you chomping after the plot.  I would not say that this a great book.  I doubt that Elmore Leonard would either.  It is an entertainment that accomplishes what it sets out to do.  If you squint at it hard enough, you might discern a meditation on ethics and cynicism, but you’ll enjoy the book more if you don’t.

Three Stars.