I was a little surprised early on when I realised I’d seen
this book as the movie, ‘Jackie Brown’. Although it started differently, the
giveaway was the description of the bail bonds office – they really caught the
feel of the place in the movie. There were a few changes here and there – the
white Jackie Burke of the book became the black Jackie Brown in the movie, and
Max the bondsman is more central, but the flavour of the thing was all here,
and the movie was pretty faithful. I wasn’t reading it as a foil for the movie,
but I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more or less if I hadn’t seen
Tarantino’s spin on it.
Max was likable, the characters, settings and plot all capably done. Still, nothing really soared for me here either – there are other crime writers (Hammett, Perez-Reverté, Chandler, McCall Smith) I’ll look for first.
April 06