Maximum Bob - Elmore Leonard

    1991; 326 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Hard Boiled Mystery; Humorous Crime Fiction.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    An alligator just tried to attack Judge Bob Gibbs!  It wandered onto his property and even tried to crash into his house!  Well, this is in the Palm Bach area of Florida, close to where alligators abound.  And occasional trespassing by those critters is not unheard of.

 

    Except the judge’s house isn’t all that close to where the gators hang out.  Which makes you wonder whether someone transported the beast there and dropped it off.  But who would do such a thing?

 

    Actually, the list is pretty long.  Judge Bob Gibbs’s nickname is “Maximum Bob” due to his habit of sentencing defendants in cases he’s presiding over to the maximum allowable jailtime.

 

    Some of those do eventually get out on parole after serving time.  And more than a few of them bear a huge grudge against Maximum Bob.

 

What’s To Like...

    Although Maximum Bob is is a crime-mystery novel, it is not a whodunit.  The characters may be trying to figure out who’s trying to kill whom, but the reader is privy to all those answers a lot sooner.  The fun for the reader is to see just how those dirty plots might come to pass.

 

    The characters, even the minor ones, are unique, including some vrty unlikeable, jaded, flawed, and cuckoo ones.  Judge Gibbs is a classic misogynistic redneck.  His co-protagonist is a 27-year-old divorced-and-pretty probation officer.  There are gay guys and druggies and lots of ex-cons.  There’s also a young black girl named Wanda who was born more than a century ago and presently resides inside the head of one of the characters.

 

    The text is written in a gritty style, yet there is also a subtle strain of wit running throughout.  Maximum Bob was published in 1991, and it was neat to see a reference to a long-forgotten televangelist duo from that time, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.  Even Donald Trump gets a brief mention.  So do metaphysical auras and past lives remembrances, which resonated with me.  I attended a past life seminar once a long time ago.  It was quite interesting.

 

    The ending manages to be both logical and surprising at the same time.  Several characters are killed; some expected, other not.  Ditto for the killers—some were obvious, others weren’t.  I gather that Maximum Bob is a standalone novel that was never developed into a series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 654 ratings and 96 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.79/5 based on 7,690 ratings and 402 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Your wife work in the garden?”

    “She plays with rocks.”

    “She does?  What kind of rocks?”

    “Quartz crystals.  She buries them in the dirt to clean them, restore their—whatever magic they’re suppose (sic) to have.  This is called African Shield.  My wife thinks those two petticoat palms were once women who were turned into trees.”  (pg. 130)

 

    “Dr. Vasco?”

    Hector shook his head.  “He’s not in.”

    “That’s too bad,” Kathy said, flipping open her ID case to show her picture, her name, and those official words, Department of Corrections.  “I’m his new Community Control officer.”

    “Oh, you know something?  I thought he went to AA, but he’s sleeping,” Hector said.  “Please, come in.”  She moved past him and he said, “I like your hair.  It’s much more chic than in the picture.”  (pg. 274)

 

“All of a sudden it hit me, that I may have been your mother in a previous life.”  (pg. 28)

    Unsurprisingly, there was a moderate amount of cussing in Maximum Bob.  I noted 24 instances in the first 20% of the book, including eight f-bombs and one racial epithet.  There were a number of “adult situations”, including a couple rolls-in-the-hay and some references to male and female anatomy.

 

    It should be noted that Wikipedia cites Elmore Leonard’s counts as being “gritty realism and strong dialogue”, so R-rated profanity and descriptions are to be expected. 

 

    This was my first Elmore Leonard novel, and I have a feeling it’s one of his “lighter” ones.  I picked it up at a library book sale, and reportedly, this is not one of his big hits.  Nevertheless the humor, character development, pacing, and mystery aspects all intrigued me.  I will be on the lookout for more books by Elmore Leonard.

 

    6 Stars.  One last thing.  One last quibble.  The dog dies.  In a particularly gruesome fashion.