Escape from Five Shadows (Audible Audio Edition) Elmore Leonard Richard Poe HarperAudio Books
Download As PDF : Escape from Five Shadows (Audible Audio Edition) Elmore Leonard Richard Poe HarperAudio Books
Corey Bowen is an innocent man. Wrongly convicted, and imprisoned in the brutal labor camp at Five Shadows run by a sadistic embezzler willing to kill to keep his scheme running, Bowen is determined to break out or die trying. The trackers have already caught him once, dragged him back through the mesquite and rocks, and beat him bloody and near dead after his last attempt. But this time he'll have help - from a lady with murder on her mind and a debt to pay back. They say that breaking out of Five Shadows is impossible, but Bowen is a different breed, and this time he will go to any extreme to escape.
Escape from Five Shadows (Audible Audio Edition) Elmore Leonard Richard Poe HarperAudio Books
I love Elmore Leonard, and I have bought and read just about all of his fiction. That's why this book was such a surprise and such a disappointment. It's as if he wanted to pump out another book but wasn't really into writing one.His plots and characters are usually a good match, and the pace and development are tight and make sense. Fiction, yes, but believable (or at least able to generate a willing suspension of disbelief). "Escape..." is a real let-down. Some of the problems are:
--Too many character cliches, including: The spunky young gal non-conformist (who also just happens to have Friends in High Places). The hero who is catnip to women. The True Warrior (in this case, the oddly-named Salvaje--Spanish for "wild" or "savage") who can't accept operating on an ignoble level. The drunken loser being given a chance for redemption through courage.
--Major inconsistencies and anachronisms, including: A character in the late 19th century warning the Villain that tampering with the U.S. Mail is a crime and boy, is he in trouble. This just doesn't feel like a 19th-century frontier issue. A male character coming up with the "gee, we never have time to talk" line (which came in around 1970 or so) to a girl he barely knows.
--Convenient but absurdly unlikely situations. For example, the head Villain refuses to let one woman leave the area. Yet another woman (the same one who threatens federal action for mail tampering) comes and goes freely and has contact with the sequestered one. The sequestered woman could easily get the other woman to help her (after all, she was all set to turn the baddie in for mail tampering); but in this novel mail tampering is worthy of a federal case but somehow kidnapping or holding someone against their will is tacitly accepted by all parties.
--Characters acting in highly unlikely ways so as to lead to the moral conclusion desired by the author, including: the hero interferes with a man who attempts to kill the Villain. The main reason appears to be that the hero needs to show us his goodness, the other man needs to be able to gain some sort of redemption with a happy ending, and the Native Americans have to have a chance show their nobility. The death of the Villain would have solved a lot of real-time problems for everyone, but it wouldn't have let Leonard get the moral ending he wanted. When the characters are so evidently operating to serve the writer and not themselves, the book loses credibility.
--Characters who have an almost supernatural ability to predict how others will act and react. Examples: The hero just knows that the Native Americans will or won't do this or that. Yet he is the same character who totally misjudged his fellow inmate, not just once but at least twice (three times if you count letting a treacherous individual have access to a gun, while the hero inexplicably leaves his on the kitchen counter). The girl who just knows at a glance or two that the hero is different and good and didn't really commit the crime for which he was imprisoned.
--Lots of observations about the decision-making process of the hero and others (the "he knew that it was risky, but he realized there was no better way" type of mind-reading) which feel heavy and forced and are called for because the actual decisions and actions are so out of line with what real people--or the characters in Leonard's other novels--would do. Leonard usually sketches the characters' internal workings very well, but not here, perhaps because he's using this device to explain odd behavior.
There are other issues that I'm sure other readers will point out. Bottom line: this book from a truly great author is a low-water mark for Leonard.
Note: Robert B. Parker's westerns have some of the same character and moral cliches, but he generally gets them to work considerably better than this, because he doesn't contort the characters' actions in order to get the moral result he wants. Instead, the characters' established personalities and motives lead naturally to the result.
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Escape from Five Shadows (Audible Audio Edition) Elmore Leonard Richard Poe HarperAudio Books Reviews
I've read maybe 15 of Leonard's books, mostly urban crime but a few westerns. This was as easy to read as any of them and I recommend it.
Get a cup of coffee over by the fire stranger, and let me tell you a story you won't soon forget....
Another winner of a book, gotta go, I'm ordering another book...
Great story and good character development. Good development of relationships. Good plot twists
I enjoy Elmore Leonard's westerns very much. Well researched, well written, interesting and entertaining.
First of all I am and have always been a Leonard fan. I like just about everything he has done so I have to say I just like his style even if the story might not be so good. Five Shadows has it all, romance, action, bad guys, good guys, good/bad guys. Reading is easy and fast and has not lulls. Just a good old western read that helps you escape from the everyday modern life that makes you long for the idea of the "Old West".
I have read several westerns by Leonard, this is the worst one I have read. Corey Bowen is trying to escape from the prison camp Five Shadows. He tries and is caught but does he give up, NO. He lives to try again. Page after page is spent talking about the escape. A girl he has seen one time, Karla Demery, likes his looks and contacts an Attorney to see if he will help him. The Attorney agrees and has a new trial set up when Bowen tries another break out. The big villian is Frank Renda who is in charge of the prison. He and his side kick will shoot you for nothing and call it an attempted excape. The book was slow, I found my self wanting to skim pages to just get it over with. If this happenes to be the first Leonard book you have read don't think they are all like this one. He does write some good westerns.
one of Leonard's great romances. as usual, things move along inexorably, until a seemingly irresistible force meets an immovable object. motivations are key, and the beautiful Karla provides all that is needed in the end.
Leonard's great skill at dialogue isn't as significant in this tale, but his skill at plotting a good story really takes over.
I love Elmore Leonard, and I have bought and read just about all of his fiction. That's why this book was such a surprise and such a disappointment. It's as if he wanted to pump out another book but wasn't really into writing one.
His plots and characters are usually a good match, and the pace and development are tight and make sense. Fiction, yes, but believable (or at least able to generate a willing suspension of disbelief). "Escape..." is a real let-down. Some of the problems are
--Too many character cliches, including The spunky young gal non-conformist (who also just happens to have Friends in High Places). The hero who is catnip to women. The True Warrior (in this case, the oddly-named Salvaje--Spanish for "wild" or "savage") who can't accept operating on an ignoble level. The drunken loser being given a chance for redemption through courage.
--Major inconsistencies and anachronisms, including A character in the late 19th century warning the Villain that tampering with the U.S. Mail is a crime and boy, is he in trouble. This just doesn't feel like a 19th-century frontier issue. A male character coming up with the "gee, we never have time to talk" line (which came in around 1970 or so) to a girl he barely knows.
--Convenient but absurdly unlikely situations. For example, the head Villain refuses to let one woman leave the area. Yet another woman (the same one who threatens federal action for mail tampering) comes and goes freely and has contact with the sequestered one. The sequestered woman could easily get the other woman to help her (after all, she was all set to turn the baddie in for mail tampering); but in this novel mail tampering is worthy of a federal case but somehow kidnapping or holding someone against their will is tacitly accepted by all parties.
--Characters acting in highly unlikely ways so as to lead to the moral conclusion desired by the author, including the hero interferes with a man who attempts to kill the Villain. The main reason appears to be that the hero needs to show us his goodness, the other man needs to be able to gain some sort of redemption with a happy ending, and the Native Americans have to have a chance show their nobility. The death of the Villain would have solved a lot of real-time problems for everyone, but it wouldn't have let Leonard get the moral ending he wanted. When the characters are so evidently operating to serve the writer and not themselves, the book loses credibility.
--Characters who have an almost supernatural ability to predict how others will act and react. Examples The hero just knows that the Native Americans will or won't do this or that. Yet he is the same character who totally misjudged his fellow inmate, not just once but at least twice (three times if you count letting a treacherous individual have access to a gun, while the hero inexplicably leaves his on the kitchen counter). The girl who just knows at a glance or two that the hero is different and good and didn't really commit the crime for which he was imprisoned.
--Lots of observations about the decision-making process of the hero and others (the "he knew that it was risky, but he realized there was no better way" type of mind-reading) which feel heavy and forced and are called for because the actual decisions and actions are so out of line with what real people--or the characters in Leonard's other novels--would do. Leonard usually sketches the characters' internal workings very well, but not here, perhaps because he's using this device to explain odd behavior.
There are other issues that I'm sure other readers will point out. Bottom line this book from a truly great author is a low-water mark for Leonard.
Note Robert B. Parker's westerns have some of the same character and moral cliches, but he generally gets them to work considerably better than this, because he doesn't contort the characters' actions in order to get the moral result he wants. Instead, the characters' established personalities and motives lead naturally to the result.
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