Review
Having narrated four Elmore Leonard Westerns, Richard Poe demonstrates in this re-release that he's also comfortable with Leonard's crime novels...Poe delivers a respectable range of Southern accents, and, most importantly, he allows the humor come out naturally. This is an essential listen for Leonard's fans because it provides the inspiration for many characters who appear in later books-including the dysfunctional Crowe family, whose members, like most of Leonard's criminals, are dumber than they think.
-- "AudioFile"
Spunky Kathy Baker of the Florida Deptartment of Corrections blows a whiff of fresh air into the Leonard canon...[along with] nicely realized characters, the usual smart Leonard dialogue, a few moments of brisk high/low humor.
-- "Kirkus Reviews"
While [Maximum Bob] is darker than his usual fare...his pace, humor, and ear are as suspenseful, dry, and true as ever.
-- "Publishers Weekly"
Leonard's trademark toughness, grit, and sleaze are on every page, and the tale's developments and ending are, as usual, sickeningly convincing.
-- "Booklist" From the Publisher
Skirt-chasing, orchid-raising Florida judge "Maximum" Bob Gibbs has made a career of oversentencing convicted felons. He's thrown the book at so many that it's beginning to look like one of them may be planning to throw it back at him. But assassination isn't the worst of the judge's problems. He's got to get his whacked-out wife Leanne out of Palm Beach--fast. For it seems she's becoming an embarrassment, what with her multiple personalities and all. So when Bob starts playing footsie with an alligator poacher in a scam to scare his wife into divorce, and a pretty probation officer named Kathy Diaz Baker catches his lecherous eye, things really start to heat up in south Florida...as bullets start flying, a gator comes crawling, and a lovely lady finds herself in a cross fire of smart crooks, foolish love, and sweet revenge.
From the Inside Flap
Enter the world of Elmore Leonard. The setting is Palm Beach County, Florida, where someone places a live ten-foot alligator in the backyard of the bigoted, redneck judge Bob Gibbs--known to all as Maximum Bob--and his wife, Leanne, a former Weeki Wachee mermaid. Not long after that, shots are fired into the judge's house. It doesn't take much figuring to conclude that someone's out to get him and that malefactor isn't going to stop at the second try. There's a long list of suspects: Dale Crowe, who just got an outrageous sentence for a minor crime; his uncle Elvin, a killer on parole, raring to go again; Dr. Tommy Vasco, the drugged out former medical doctor; his equally bizarre friend, Hector; and Dicky Campau, who makes a living poaching alligators. And there are others.
Somehow Kathy Baker, a nifty young probation officer, has got herself in the middle of all this. She's got to avoid two seducers--the judge and a homicidal maniac--and work with a young police officer who interests her for more than professional reasons. Trying to pick out from his assortment of bad guys, sociopaths, and punks the one who's trying to kill the judge is pure entertainment, as only Elmore Leonard, with his ear for the sound and eye for the sight of lowlife, can provide.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
Hard-ass Palm Beach County judge Bob Isom Gibbs enjoys sending even petty offenders away to do hard time -- which has made the list of miscreants who want him dead longer than a fully grown Florida gator's tail. And a good number of his illwishers are probation officer Kathy Baker's clients, including young Dale Crowe and his psycho uncle Elvin. Now, Kathy's got an even more daunting task than keeping BIG's horny hands off her: keeping "Maximum Bob" alive. Because Gibbs's many enemies seem to be willing to go to any lengths -- be it death by amphibian or some more tried-and-true method -- to permanently end the career of an oversexed, racist jurist who's more interested in scoring than in saving his own red neck.
About the Author
Elmore Leonard wrote more than forty books during his long career, including the bestsellers Raylan, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty, and Rum Punch, as well as the acclaimed collection When the Women Come Out to Dance, which was a New York Times Notable Book. Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. The short story "Fire in the Hole," and three books, including Raylan, were the basis for the FX hit show Justified. Leonard received the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN USA and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He died in 2013.
