KILLSHOT by Elmore Leonard

I didn't realize that this book was made into a movie, but now I have to see it, even if it did go straight to DVD.  Honestly, I don't know how Hollywood could mess up a plot this good, but then I'm not a screenwriter.  Armand Degas is a hired assassin, who joins psychopath and dangerous hoodlum Richie Nix in an extortion plot of a real estate brokerage.  They get more than they bargained for when they try to shake down their target at the real estate office but instead get chased off by Wayne Colson, an ironworker.  Wayne's plucky wife Carmen wields a mean shotgun herself when the situation calls for action.  The author is striving for entertainment, not realism, here, and that suits me just fine.  And Carmen is my kind of heroine.  She gets nervous and frightened and she may even cry, but she's someone you want around in an emergency.  Wayne may not be the perfect husband, but he's not a simpering fool, either.  When these two go into witness protection in a rundown house in Missouri, with a super-slimy U.S. Marshall in charge, I thought they might lose their edge, not to mention their marriage.  Meanwhile, Armand and Richie know that they have to take out these two amateur adversaries, before yet another of Richie's senseless, murderous escapades lands them behind bars.