Valdez Is Coming

Whenever I'm about ready to start reading an Elmore Leonard novel, I feel like a kid anticipating Christmas morning! Leonard's books are always page-turning thrillers that can make me gasp over a surprising character/plot twist that I wasn't expecting. His novels are always fast-paced, fun, entertaining reads. "Valdez is Coming" is no differant. Although it is a western,it's a page-turner written in the great Elmore Leonard style. This novel was written years ago, before Elmore Leonard began writing crime thrillers, but it still holds up and entertains. There's a hero you love to love(Valdez), and there's a villian you love to hate. There's a damsel in distress, and the typical Elmore Leonard twists and turns that keep you quickly flipping the pages because you want to know what happens next! I often tell people to turn off the damn tv and pick up an Elmore Leonard novel. Try this one, or many of his crime thrillers. You won't be disappointed. In fact, you'll find yourself having a pretty good time!

I started reading Elmore Leonard's crime novels and found them to be easy reading, fast-paced entertainment. Then I discovered that Leonard used to write westerns. While I enjoy his crime novels, his Westerns are even better. "Valdez is Coming" is the best one I've read so far. The characters are well developed and the action keeps one interested. I had seen the movie (Burt Lancaster as Valdez) when I was a teenager and considered it one of my favorite western movies. I wish Mr. Leonard would write a few more westerns because he is a master in this genre as well.

I'm new to the Western genre. I started with a few L'Amours, then a friend said that Leonard had written Westerns. I hadn't read Leonard yet, and knew only of his crime novels, by reputation, and I did see "Get Shorty" and thought it was great. So I picked this one up first. It's very fine. The story details you see in the other reviews. This is a revenge tale, always a theme that appeals because it reflects our own various revenge fantasies, which if we are honest, we will acknowlege persist beyond adolescence! This is up there with other great revenge stories, from the Count of Monte Christo to the Demon Prince novels of the inimitably great Jack Vance, though of course it is not as monumental as those works. Valdez is Coming has a very powerful and perfect ending. I read the last 2 or 3 pages several times. Louis L'Amour is a solid 3-star writer; this is praise, not denigration. But as time is short, folks need to know there are many finer Western writers out there. Being introduced to Leonard by this book and by Hombre, I won't be going back to L'Amour until I've finished Leonard, and some others.

I've read a handful of other Leonard books and I've enjoyed them all. So far, this is his best. Yes, this is a western, but don't let that turn you away. It's just a good setting for a great story. Here, the law rests not with the police, but with a powerful, dislikable land owner, not with Valdez, the town's part-time constable. Valdez is tolerated, but laughed at, even bullied. When he and the landowner finally face off, Valdez proves himself tougher than anyone expected. Leonard has a gift for observing people and putting that observation to page. As always, he writes great bad guys, but here they are especially believable. You can understand their motivations. Leonard is a master at deadpan humor, and here its fully realized. You don't even know he's making a joke--until you start laughing. Read it and enjoy.

Elmore Leonard probably didn't become fashionable, or at least, a best seller until the last ten years. But I believe the novels he wrote in the 70's are his best. I think "Valdez is Coming" may have been the last western novel he wrote, circa 1970. It was made into a depressingly bad film starring Burt Lancaster who, at that time, was simply too old and tired to play the role. (Steve McQueen would have been far better; perhaps Clooney could work the role today. It requires someone who can convincingly portray a 40 year old man who on the surface seems like a bit of a loser, but who everyone soon realizes they drastically underestimated.) The film may have been responsible for the novel's lack of acclaim. Which is too bad, because "Valdez is Coming" is probably one of his five best. (I would say "Swag", "52 Pick-Up", "Hombre" and "Unknown Man # 89" are the other four.) A story of courage and redemption told with depth and sensitivity. The chapter where he discusses that a man can be two men; one man at a certain time and place and another man in another place is outstanding. And the action scenes - the gunfights, the confrontations, etc. - are the best Leonard's ever written. Simply great storytelling with little of the contemporary need to be hip or cool.