Elmore Leonard And T.Jefferson Parker: Two Crime Writers At The Top of Their Game

Mike Downey at the Los Angeles Times reviews Elmore Leonard's Raylan and T. Jefferson Parker's The Jaguar.

The new year is a happier one already for aficionados of America's top crime novelists. That is because, along with T. Jefferson Parker and a snarling, teeth-baring rip-snorter called "The Jaguar," a couple of our most creative writers are back and in good form. Their flawed but basically heroic lawmen — Charlie Hood being the Parker brand — are men of action, written with wit. A law gets bent here and there, but who cares?

Kidney-nappers are at the heart of "Raylan," a pair of Kentucky varmints who turn up unexpectedly at your door, disguised behind Barack and Michelle Obama masks, to drug you, drub you, relieve you of a vital organ — two, in some cases — and then rub-a-dub-dub you in a tub. Good ol' Stetson-topped Raylan, the coal miner's son who became a fed, ends up on the case.

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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-mike-downey-20120122,0,4000042.story