MAXIMUM BOB by Elmore Leonard

This is not my favorite Elmore Leonard novel, but it was a fast read, fast-paced, and not intellectually demanding.  The title character is Bob Gibbs, a smarmy Circuit Court judge in Palm Beach County, Florida, who is politically incorrect in every category.  The main character is a female heroine this time—Kathy Baker, an attractive probation office who catches the judge’s wandering eye.  Among the dozens of guys in her caseload are Dale Crowe, Jr., and his uncle Elvin Crowe.  Dale is a small-time offender who can’t keep his mouth shut in court, but Elvin is way crazier and more dangerous than he seems.  Judge Gibbs sentenced both men.  When a large alligator busts into the judge’s home, the general consensus is that someone is trying to kill Maximum Bob.  This incident gives Elvin the idea of cutting a deal with a doctor in an ankle monitor to bump off the judge.  Things go haywire from there, and Kathy, accustomed to tracking down parole violators, becomes more of an investigator, alongside handsome, preppie cop Gary Hammond.  As always with Leonard’s novels, the dialog is terrific, and the bad guys are really bad and often inept.  Leonard does not pull any punches in the violence department, but he balances it out with humor and oddball characters.  The ending left me feeling a little deflated, but there are lots more of his novels to offer a pick-me-up.