FREAKY DEAKY

All the Leonard fans who wisely boycotted last year's old dog of a parable, Touch, can rest easy: this—as the high-hip title announces—is vintage (if not stellar) Elmore, another edgy tale of crime and punishment in Detroit's outer limits that crackles with cool street-smarts and dark-humored urban ironies. Leonard's archest opening ever sets the tone, as bomb-squador Chris Mankowski answers a call to rescue a drag kingpin who's sitting on a dynamite-packed armchair wondering whether he can dive into his Jacuzzi before the chair blows. Turns out he can't: and that explosion is only the first to punctuate Leonard's knowing narration as he limns Mankowski's shift out of the bomb squad and into the Sex Crimes unit, where the tough but decent cop takes on the case of fledgling actress Greta Wyatt, who claims rape by a rich man named Woody. Even as Mankowski romances Greta, he finds that fat Woody is more victim than villain, a booze-befuddled sot who's a perfect mark for the school of sharks circling him, looking to eat his fortune. The sharpest teeth belong to ex-cons Robin Abbott and Skip Gibbs, former bomb-throwing 60's radicals hired by Woody's disinherited brother, Mark, to blow up Woody. When Mark fatally stumbles into the blast set for Woody, mean-spirited Robin and Skip go freelance, hatching an extortion plot that's helped along by Woody's loyal but all-too-greedy valet, ex-Black Panther Donnell Lewis—and run smack up against Mankowski, who's taken a shine to the hapless Woody. As Woody wobbles in his drunk's haze, cop and extortionists play out a game of wits that winds up as a lethal war of explosives in a wickedly inventive, droll climax. Leonard's usual superb pacing, uncanny ear for patois, and menagerie of quirky characters are here in full force; but this fails to match his best for its want of a truly riveting villain or hero (Woody and Donnell, sparkling creations, steal the show from the more thin-blooded Skip, Robin, and Mankowski). And, crucially, at bottom this is formula Leonard—a well-done variation, sure, but of a theme that's beginning to lose its bloom, if not its commercial appeal.