Pronto
By: Elmore Leonard.
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: New York, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 265
Subjects: Organized crime -- Fiction; Miami (Fla.) -- Fiction; Italy -- Fiction
Description: Try rounding up the usual suspects and you'll find it can't be done in an Elmore Leonard novel. Pronto is no exception. Here a fascinating array of colorful characters discovers that the Atlantic can't separate the good guys from the bad when a bookie, a U.S. marshal, and a trio of thugs from Miami's underworld pay a visit to Rapallo, on the Italian Riviera.

For twenty years Harry Arno has operated a sports book in Miami Beach, taking bets on all the pro games. And for twenty years Harry has been skimming the profits, shortchanging his silent partners, the local wiseguys. Harry is ready to retire to a villa on the Italian Riviera with his girlfriend, Joyce - maybe even marry her - when he becomes the fall guy in an FBI assault on organized crime and has to run for his life.

A U.S. marshal named Raylan Givens happens to know what Harry did in Italy in '45, during the war, and why it draws Harry to return, so Raylan takes off after the bookmaker to bring him back. Years before, on their way to a grand jury hearing, Harry ducked out and Raylan looked downright dumb. It would seem he's not going to let it happen again. Or is it that he follows Harry to protect him from the Zip, a gangster in the classic style who has his own reason to see Harry dead?

Pronto takes you to Italy, where it reaches a high in suspense, then returns to Miami Beach for the big finish.

With razor-sharp wit, crackling suspense, and some of the most authentic dialogue in contemporary fiction, Pronto is Elmore Leonard at his astonishing best. The unrivaled master at awakening the sights, smells, and sounds of the colorful worlds he so flawlessly portrays, Leonard has once again created "an intimate, precise, funny, frightening, and irresistible mural of the American underworld." (The New Yorker).