PRONTO by Elmore Leonard

Harry Arno, a Miami Beach bookie, has given Raylan Givens, U.S. Marshall, the slip twice.  Raylan makes a deal with Harry’s bail bondsman and follows Harry to Italy with the intention of bringing him back to the States to face a grand jury for murder.  However, some other gangsters want Harry dead, and Raylan becomes more Harry’s protector than his pursuer.  Elmore Leonard always entertains with snappy dialog and the occasional bad guy, like Harry, who is not completely bad, and good guys, like Raylan, who are occasionally and frustratingly outwitted by the bad guys.  Leonard tends to err on the side of being a little theatrical, but he still tells a good yarn.  There’s even a fair maiden in this novel—Harry’s girlfriend Joyce, a former stripper who catches Raylan’s eye and vice versa.  Raylan, of course, is the main character in the now-defunct FX series Justified.  His physical description here does not quite match that of actor Timothy Olyphant, who plays Raylan, but it’s close enough—just as laidback as Olyphant but not quite as handsome.  His boots and ever-present Stetson, even in Italy, definitely match the TV show.