Tishomingo Blues

Description: High diver Dennis Lenahan is about to perform his regular stunt of diving into a small water tank from the roof of the Tishomingo Lodge in Mississippi when, way below, he sees a guy getting killed. Dennis has stumbled into one hell of a scene - unfortunate enough to be present when the cool dudes from Detroit are trying to muscle in on the local activities of the Dixie Mafia. And he's still around when it all comes to a shoot-out at the annual reconstruction of the Civil War Battle of Tishomingo - only this time they're playing with real guns...Elmore Leonard's great new bestseller combines, as always, high comedy with high action, and some of the best dialogue ever given to characters in a novel.

Review: By now just about everyone knows that a visit to Leonard country is at least going to be a trip. With cool dudes. And whipcrack dialogue. And angles, lots of angles. Tishimongo Blues, aficionados will be relieved to hear, is all that and more. When professional high diver Dennis Lenahan arrives at the Tishomingo Lodge and Casino, in Tunica, Miss., and sets up his 80-foot ladder and nine-foot deep pool, almost the first thing he sees is Floyd Showers getting taken out. Five bullets, neat, but noisy. Next he meets Robert Taylor, a blues-loving operator just down from Detroit, and Dennis starts to get sucked into a whole other lawless world of gangsters, girls and Civil War re-enactments. As weird a slice of Americana as you could wish for.


Author Biography: Elmore Leonard is the author of thirty-seven novels, most recently Pagan Babies. Many have been filmed, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. He was in the US Navy during the Second World War, then worked in advertising before becoming a writer. He lives in Detroit, Michigan.