Recommended reading - Rum Punch

 

Rum Punch

by Elmore Leonard.
 
Published by Delacorte Press.
First published 1992.
Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 038530143X
ISBN-13: 978-0385301435
 
Description:
 

Pretty working-girl Jackie Burke is in a tight spot.  She's just been picked up at Palm Beach International with fifty grand and some blow stashed in her flight bag.  Lucky for her, the Feds want something Jackie's got:  the inside track to Ordell Robbie, the notoriusly slick arms dealer.  And they're ready to deal – Ordell in exchange for her freedom.  But Jackie's got another ace up her sleeve. . .Enter Max Cherry, bail bondsman.  Big, tough, basically decent Max is on the verge of divorce and tired of the same old grind.  That's where Jackie comes in.  The fifty big ones are peanuts compared to what Ordell's got locked away in Freeport.  But when a blowsy blond blowhead and a none-too-bright ex con try to muscle in on the action, it's time to pull and old bait and switch – where the good guys are played off against the bad guys – and where Jackie and Max hope to walk off into the Florida sunset with a hot half million in cold cash.

 

"Unputdownable! Benath it's fast moving surface, Rum Punch is a novel about growing old, about the way that time changes us, about the old dream of starting over agian and its cost." – The Washington Post Book World.
 
"Expertly blended. . .potent Dutch." – Chicago Sun-Times.
 
"Rum Punch is Leonard's best work! He brilliantly reaffirms his right to the title of America's finest crime-fiction writer." – People.