Who are the criminals in our world and why do they do what they do? Do they act out of desperation driven by poverty, or is it instinct, a desire that must be fulfilled? We know this much; they act for significant gain. After all, the code of consequences that defines their world is so harsh that it wouldn't be worth it to live the life for any other reason. But it can't all be gain. Surely some measure of alienation, of being different, of not belonging, must also be included in the heady brew of personality common in the Underworld. Interestingly, Mr. Leonard dismisses most of these introspective theories in favor of a much simpler explanation. In the end, it's all about from where and whom you come. This is what defines Raylan.
A U.S. marshal with a propensity for shooting people, Raylan Givens can chase criminals as far as he wishes, from the mountains of Italy to the swamps of Florida, but he'll never get eastern Kentucky out of his blood. Those coal-rich hills were in him long before he earned his marshal's star. Back then, he was just a kid, working for his family, digging coal with swindlers and gun-thugs, cheats and dogs, bound together by the brotherhood of one of the dirtiest businesses in the world. That he left that behind 20 years ago doesn't mean a thing now that he's back in Kentucky, dumped in backwater America on account of being a little too free with his finger trigger.
If his superiors thought, even for a moment, that things would be quieter for Raylan back in Kentucky, they were fools. Trouble finds this roguish marshal wherever he goes. In the Appalachias, it's just a different set of problems. This time, trouble has three faces and all of them female. Carol, a ruthless representative of big coal, has her cold heart set on owning coal-rich Black Mountain and she won't stop at murder to get it either. Layla, a transplant nurse, is tired of being treated like a blowup doll for the pleasures of horny, arrogant doctors. She's going to show them how to make serious bank, even if it costs her her soul. Jackie Nevada has a serious head for poker and she's willing to play deep, no matter what the stakes. So what happens when a powerful and bored millionaire stakes her to some serious games? Deadly problems all...
Buoyed by the ratings success of FX's Justified, Raylan is Mr. Leonard's most thorough portrait of the laconic character he originally created and which Justified popularized. In these three intertwined narratives which liberally share both characters and themes, Mr. Leonard re-imagines a tale already told by the television drama while proffering two new and compelling stories for the writers on Justified to depict. Though all three work equally well, fans of the drama will be floored by the gaping absence of the mesmerizing Mags Bennett around whom Justified's second season orbited. Here, Mags is exchanged for the equally wiley but half as compelling father of the IQ-challenged Crowe clan who, fuelled by their weed business, are a powerful force within the so-called Dixie Mafia, the South's answer to Atlantic-based organized crime.
Though Mags Bennett is sorely missed, Mr. Leonard does not otherwise disappoint. Fifty years and countless stories later and the old master still has his fast ball, blending his inimitable wit, his suave characters and his breezy descriptions of extraordinary violence to create a gray world dripping in cool. You don't know why you like them, only that you do, that they possess the same, inexplicable but irresistible charm that made the cool kids so alluring. Neither fans of Justified nor of Mr. Leonard will close this slim novel, with its fine, minimalist prose, having considered their money wasted. (3/5 Stars)
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