Be cool

In Get Shorty (1990), Chili Palmer was a Miami loan shark who ventured to the strange land of Los Angeles and stumbled into the movie business. Now, with two movies under his belt, he's looking for another big hit. Both Chili Palmer novels are stories about a guy who converts events in his own life into feature-film fodder, sort of writing a movie as he goes, turning fact into fiction. As good as Get Shorty was--and it was very good--its sequel is better. Chili's new quest for a box-office smash, which involves a beautiful young singer, several shady music-business insiders, and an assortment of villains, reaches a level of comic surrealism that its predecessor only approached. This time, Chili knows from the beginning that he's going to turn his life into a movie. The loan shark turned producer becomes a kind of puppet master, staging real-life events to see how they'd work in a screenplay, orchestrating scenes, manipulating people as though they were big-screen characters. He knows there are folks who want to kill him, but what a movie it will all make--if only he can survive to the fade-out. This is a funnier novel than Get Shorty, too, chock-full of entertainment-industry in-jokes, and with a liberal supply of Leonard's always engaging characters and music-to-the-ears dialogue. With the master's name on it, Be Cool will immediately pole-vault toward the top of most best-seller lists. This one deserves its success. --David Pitt

In Get Shorty (1990), Leonard skewered the film industry in a rollicking crime read that became not only a bestselling book but also a megahit movie. This razor-sharp sequel veers from the venality, egomania and basic bad taste of the movies with the similar attributes of the pop-music business. After one hit (Get Leo) and one flop (Get Lost), Chili Palmer, former loan shark and now movie producer, thinks the record industry is fertile ground for his next flick. He hasn't lost touch with his old Brooklyn friends, though, and while lunching with one he witnesses his pal's mob-style murder. As he's not a serious suspect, Chili becomes friendly with the investigating LAPD detective. He has also become interested in Texas-bred singer Linda Moon and her effort to break into the biz, which puts him on the wrong side of her inept but murderous manager, Raji. When a Russian gangster is found shot dead in Chili's house, matters complicate further as Chili wades through a rogues' gallery including more Russians, a mob hit man, seriously criminal gangsta rappers, Raji's giant gay Samoan bodyguard and assorted other denizens of La La Land. Chili remains a compulsively appealing character throughout, retaining his immaculate cool in lethal situations as those around him wallow in pretension and hypocrisy. Leonard's plotting is as propulsive as ever and his desert-dry wit continues to flare at high heat. Nearly every sentence of this novel reads as if it's dipped in gold. This is a knockout work from a master crime writer: be cool, and relish it. Major ad/promo; simultaneous BDD audio; author tour. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Ex-loan-shark-turned-movie-producer Chili Palmer needs a new hit. Get Lost, the sequel to his successful first film Get Leo, tanked at the box office. When a record producer he's power lunching with is gunned down in a Russian mob hit, Chili gets inspired: "You couldn't have the star get popped ten minutes into the picture...but it could be the way to open it. A movie about the music business." Despite being pursued by several assassins (he promises one a screen test), the always unflappable Chili uses his own life to develop his movie, manipulating the people he meets and staging events to see how they would fit in a screenplay. ("I love how you work," studio executive Elaine Levin dryly tells Chili.) Leonard incorporates his trademark black humor, sharp dialog, and eccentric characters into this hilarious follow-up to Get Shorty (Delacorte, 1990); this is one sequel that is as good as the original. One hopes that an expected film version (possibly with John Travolta again) will uphold the high standards set by its cinematic predecessor. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/98.]‘Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Nine years after his farcical conquest of Hollywood in Get Shorty, former loan shark Chili Palmer aims to scale equally unlikely new heights as a music producer. As you'd expect, it all happens more or less by accident. Stung by the failure of Get Lost, the sequel to his triumphant debut, Get Leo, Chili's not sure what story will put him back on top of Hollywood's greasy pole. Should his comeback film be about a rocker like Linda Moon, a singer who works for a dating service, or about a record producer like Chili's acquaintance Tommy Athens? The decision gets complicated when Tommy is executed in the middle of a power lunch with Chili, and when Chili tells Raji, the pimplike manager of Linda's girl group, that Linda is suddenly free to reconvene her old band Odessa ("AC/DC meets Patsy Cline") because Chili himself will be managing her from now on. In short order, then, Chili's getting serious homicidal attention from the outraged Raji, his gay Samoan bodyguard, and the shooter who took out Tommy Athens--all helping to explain the dead man in Chili's living room. (Raji's hit man, chagrined at having zapped another hit man by mistake, aptly observes that people are lining up to kill this guy.) A lesser executive would be toast. But not Chili, with his unshakeable confidence and his would-be killers' boundless capacity for self-delusion: he tells one assassin he'll get him a screen test, manufactures for a second the tale of a scam only Chili can straighten out, and puts himself in the middle of a deal a third needs to clinch before he can murder Chili. As the corpses who aren't Chili pile up, Leonard (Cuba Libre, 1998, etc.) tosses off a dozen new spins on Get Shorty's gorgeous premise--that nobody can run the entertainment industry as well as a low-level mobster armed with Leonard's endless stream of wisecracks--to produce a good-natured thriller as relaxing as it is exhilarating. (Author tour; TV satellite tour) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

/*Starred Review*/ In Get Shorty (1990), Chili Palmer was a Miami loan shark who ventured to the strange land of Los Angeles and stumbled into the movie business. Now, with two movies under his belt, he's looking for another big hit. Both Chili Palmer novels are stories about a guy who converts events in his own life into feature-film fodder, sort of writing a movie as he goes, turning fact into fiction. As good as Get Shorty was--and it was very good--its sequel is better. Chili's new quest for a box-office smash, which involves a beautiful young singer, several shady music-business insiders, and an assortment of villains, reaches a level of comic surrealism that its predecessor only approached. This time, Chili knows from the beginning that he's going to turn his life into a movie. The loan shark turned producer becomes a kind of puppet master, staging real-life events to see how they'd work in a screenplay, orchestrating scenes, manipulating people as though they were big-screen characters. He knows there are folks who want to kill him, but what a movie it will all make--if only he can survive to the fade-out. This is a funnier novel than Get Shorty, too, chock-full of entertainment-industry in-jokes, and with a liberal supply of Leonard's always engaging characters and music-to-the-ears dialogue. With the master's name on it, Be Cool will immediately pole-vault toward the top of most best-seller lists. This one deserves its success. ((Reviewed November 1, 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

Ex-loan-shark-turned-movie-producer Chili Palmer needs a new hit. Get Lost, the sequel to his successful first film Get Leo, tanked at the box office. When a record producer he's power lunching with is gunned down in a Russian mob hit, Chili gets inspired: "You couldn't have the star get popped ten minutes into the picture...but it could be the way to open it. A movie about the music business." Despite being pursued by several assassins (he promises one a screen test), the always unflappable Chili uses his own life to develop his movie, manipulating the people he meets and staging events to see how they would fit in a screenplay. ("I love how you work," studio executive Elaine Levin dryly tells Chili.) Leonard incorporates his trademark black humor, sharp dialog, and eccentric characters into this hilarious follow-up to Get Shorty (Delacorte, 1990); this is one sequel that is as good as the original. One hopes that an expected film version (possibly with John Travolta again) will uphold the high standards set by its cinematic predecessor. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/98.] Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 1999 Library Journal Reviews

In Get Shorty (1990), Leonard skewered the film industry in a rollicking crime read that became not only a bestselling book but also a megahit movie. This razor-sharp sequel veers from the venality, egomania and basic bad taste of the movies with the similar attributes of the pop-music business. After one hit (Get Leo) and one flop (Get Lost), Chili Palmer, former loan shark and now movie producer, thinks the record industry is fertile ground for his next flick. He hasn't lost touch with his old Brooklyn friends, though, and while lunching with one he witnesses his pal's mob-style murder. As he's not a serious suspect, Chili becomes friendly with the investigating LAPD detective. He has also become interested in Texas-bred singer Linda Moon and her effort to break into the biz, which puts him on the wrong side of her inept but murderous manager, Raji. When a Russian gangster is found shot dead in Chili's house, matters complicate further as Chili wades through a rogues' gallery including more Russians, a mob hit man, seriously criminal gangsta rappers, Raji's giant gay Samoan bodyguard and assorted other denizens of La La Land. Chili remains a compulsively appealing character throughout, retaining his immaculate cool in lethal situations as those around him wallow in pretension and hypocrisy. Leonard's plotting is as propulsive as ever and his desert-dry wit continues to flare at high heat. Nearly every sentence of this novel reads as if it's dipped in gold. This is a knockout work from a master crime writer: be cool, and relish it. Major ad/promo; simultaneous BDD audio; author tour. (Feb.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews