Leonard has been dead for a little over ten years now, but he’s one of my favorite writers.
The title story in this anthology is really almost a perfect story. After you get done you think: what did I just read? Leonard is SO SMOOTH.
Now, his male-female relationships in his novels are never entirely satisfying. Again and again, in his novels, relationships go on the rocks and it’s so predictable and it’s never clear why.
I read The Tonto Woman many years ago and loved it. I read it again today and loved it just as much. It seems to center (in hindsight) on a kind of McGuffin bait and switch. He convinces you to read the story because you want to know one thing and then at the end of the story he offers you something else instead and you’re like HELL YEAH! lol
I don’t know how the hell he ever got the nerve to try it but I’m glad he did. Read the story.
by tolkienfan2759