Stick — Elmore Leonard

“A slam-bang, no-bull action thriller…and nobody but nobody writes better dialogue.”  -- New York Daily News

It's an established fact: Elmore Leonard is “the uncontested master of the crime thriller” (Washington Post ) who “does crime fiction better than anyone” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), and nowhere is this more obvious than in the pages of Stick. 

After serving time for armed robbery, Ernest "Stick" Stickley is back on the outside and trying to stay legit. But it's tough staying straight in a crooked town -- and Miami is a pirate's paradise, where investment fat cats and lowlife drug dealers hold hands and dance. And when a crazed player chooses Stick at random to die for another man's sins, the struggling ex-con is left with no choice but to dive right back into the game. Besides, Stick knows a good thing when he sees it -- and a golden opportunity to run a very profitable sweet revenge scam seems much too tasty to pass up.