Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard

Some writers just appear effortless. Neil Gaiman, when he’s firing on all cylinders, can make you believe he’s plucking some grand, modern fantasy out of mid-air before your eyes. Stephen King seems to have access to a well of stories which feel like they’ve been around forever, just waiting to be told, before he filters them through a riff he’s been building his entire career. The one who always amazes me with how smooth and focused his prose can be, however, is Elmore Leonard. My god, Elmore Leonard could write a good story. His work, when it’s on form, shares something with bottled lightning. It won’t be a few pages past the cover before you find your nerves singing, a spent cork in your hand, and your hair standing on end.

Back in the mid to late 90s, when Hollywood started to realise Leonard’s work was an absolute goldmine ripe for plundering, I read a couple of his books. Rum Punch, because I was intrigued to see what story Tarrantino had chosen to adapt into his follow-up to Pulp Fiction. Freaky Deaky because, if I’m being honest, the title just felt too good to ignore. Also, in my defence, it had one of those great 90s covers. A bold type. Mirror opposite formatting. Black and bright green colouring, with a little bundle of red dynamite in the bottom corner. It’s up there with the stunning Abacus Iain Banks covers for me.

Anyway, after that, I sort of fell off the Leonard wagon for a while. I still watched the occasional movie or TV show based on his work. Some of which worked. Some of which entirely missed the mark. I tried his western short stories, only they didn’t quite work for me. They didn’t feel as genuine or lyrical as his modern day crime stories. The characters didn’t translate to anything real or relatable in my head.

In the end, it was the TV series Justified which really pulled me back into the fold. The humour. The way the larger stories wove themselves through the laidback, laconic tone of the show. I read Leonard’s book based on the series, Raylan, as soon as it came out. It felt like meeting up with an old friend for a beer, some good food, and some fine conversation. Then I read the two novels to feature Raylan which had been released before Justified was made. Pronto and Riding the Rap.

After a re-watch of the show during lockdown, I decided it was time to dive back into his back catalogue. I ordered myself three books which are often talked about as being his best. The pursuit driven City Primeval (soon to be turned into a new series of Justified), the high dive brinksmanship of Tishomingo Blues and Pagan Babies.

I’d seen a few people saying that Pagan Babies was often missed off too many lists of Leonard’s better work, so I wanted to take a look at it, and I saved it until last. In a way, I’m glad I did. It starts very differently to the other two. Leonard’s tone is still there, only he’s covering a very different world. We begin in a post genocide Rwanda, where we meet a character called Father Terry Dunn. He’s an American priest living in a small town that’s still recovering from some truly horrendous events. Day to day, Terry is struggling to come through it all himself, barely holding himself together.

In time, the plot pulls him back to the States. There, we learn just how Terry ended up over in that church, saying mass, before people started to die. We also learn how he can be capable of an act we see early on in the book, after he taken a confession he can’t allow himself to live with.

For me, it’s this strange, jarring start that gives Pagan Babies a different feel to say Get Shorty or Rum Punch. It’s using the cards from the same deck, but it’s playing by slightly different rules. There are double crosses, sure, and there are some of Leonard’s memorable characters. Ex convict wannabe stand-up comedians with a grudge. A bodyguard who likes to think everything through, although he often leaves people wondering how he hasn’t got himself killed yet. Lascivious lawyers. Blinkered con men. Actual mobsters. In the middle of them all, Terry is trying to find a way to make himself some money, whilst avoiding the repercussions of his past life before heading to Africa. Maybe that money’s for his congregation he left back near that church full of bodies. Or maybe it’s for himself. Or maybe it’s to share with someone he’s falling for.

Leonard is fantastic when it comes to getting you to turn the page. You’d think his conversational tone would leave you feeling flat, but it never fails to drive the story forward. His characters aren’t necessarily rushing from A to B. They’re not discovering their arc or checking in with Joseph Campbell to make sure they’re heading in the right direction. Nor are they cyphers, there only to function as plot nodes. They are serving themselves and, if they’re lucky, they’ll be quick on their toes if and when things start to go wrong.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot. Like all his books, you want to be surprised by each blind corner twist that’s waiting ahead. Each betrayal. Each escape. Each starkly recorded, unexpected death. But I would say, although this one starts strong, I did find the return to Leonard’s more familiar settings in the middle left me a little cold.

What really pulls it back on track is the appearance of the real criminals towards the end of the book. Not the men playing at being gangsters or the conmen running their clubs and scams. No, it’s the sharks who fund them who really turn the story upside and lead you to a far more satisfying, consequence laden conclusion. There are some really intense moments when people are getting picked up separately for a meeting over a cheque or when a certain bodyguard turns up at someone’s family home with a gun in his pocket.

Personally, I wouldn’t say to start with this one if you want to wade into Elmore Leonard’s expansive back catalogue. If you’re a fan of Justified, then the Raylan Given books are definitely a good place to begin. Raylan will show you Elmore Leonard’s interpretation of some show’s storylines, whilst Pronto and Riding the Rap feature his original version of Givens alongside some other brilliantly realised characters. Tishomingo Blues is a solid, engaging couple of hundred pages, full of characters and bravado. For me, as well, I’ll always love Freaky Deaky. It was the first time I’d read something so slick, so punchy, so unafraid of its tone. That isn’t to say Pagan Babies isn’t good. It doesn’t cheapen the place where it starts. It carries that horror with it, into restaurants and meetings and deals. It puts them in front of characters like a pack of bundled photos, bounded with a failing elastic band. It’s a really sharp contrast between the damage some of these people have done to each other and the true horrors that a nation can be turned to do against itself.

I suppose I’m just saying that I’m glad I didn’t read it first. I’ll always love the fact that the opening chapters managed to catch me off guard so quickly and so effectively, and that the ending did not go exactly where I was expecting. Not that I should’ve really been surprised. Like I said at the beginning - Leonard knew how to write a good story.