On "Tishomingo Blues" by Elmore Leonard ***

I added this Leonard novel to my list because of the unavailability of some other books and, gladly, because this is the one Leonard lists as being his favorite among the books he wrote. I can see why. The book involves a lot of material about Civil War reenactments, the Dixie Mafia, and Tunica, Mississippi, all topics that interest me. But in that is the problem, because whereas Leonard likely enjoyed the research, the book itself didn't translate terribly well into fiction. I'd have rather read nonfiction books on each of these subjects. What's more, having lived in Mississippi for three years and the South for decades, I found Leonard's evocation of the Deep South to be a little superficial; it just didn't feel like the work of someone who knows the South, with all the complexities that come with the region (the Civil War focus probably didn't help with presenting a more nuanced view of the area).

The plot of this one didn't really grip me either. In the end, what it is about is two warring underworld factions, one gang essentially beating up on another to take over the other's turf. Crime pays, in much of Leonard's fiction, even if the criminal who gets paid in the end is the lesser of two evils--the person who happens in to a fortune rather than setting out to do bad stuff. This is true here, to an extent, but it's also true that some of the scummier people end up very well off; indeed, the book is full of scummy people, so it would be difficult to avoid such an end.

The central character of the book is Dennis Lenahan, a diver who takes his show on the road, playing to crowds at various attractions. A slow time finds him in Tunica, where he sets up as the attraction at a new casino/hotel. This is at a time when Tunica's fortunes were on the upswing, with legal gambling casinos along the river having brought much-needed tourists and money to the region. From his diving perch, Dennis witnesses a murder by a member of the so-called Dixie Mafia. Threatened if he dares to go to the authorities with what he's seen, Dennis stays quiet, dithering throughout the book about whether he should come clean and serve as a witness. News of his presence, however, leaks out anyway, which brings trouble for everyone.

Meanwhile, a man from Detroit named Robert befriends Dennis. Robert seems to know a lot about the Civil War, and he likes pushing the buttons of the folks he meets by claiming, for example, that a photograph he has of a lynching shows his grandfather (the lynchee) and the grandfather (the lyncher) of the persons to whom he shows the picture. Robert, though, isn't some civil rights provocateur; he's just another crook, looking to infiltrate the drug trade down South. The Civil War reenactment is a perfect cover to kill off the folks he needs to to pull off his plan, except of course that the southerners whose buttons he's pushed have similar plans for Robert and his crew. I didn't care about any of these jerks.

Dennis, in one way, is the worst of the bunch. He's not outright evil. In fact, he's dragged into the novel's events against his will. But it's his complicity that makes him so utterly frustrating. He doesn't seem to care as much about the right or wrong of any action as just staying out of trouble--but not because he seems scared. He comes off as a guy whose morality is governed simply by what is best for him. If he can get away with something, he'll do it, which makes him in a way a passive and less interesting character.