Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob (USA 2010)

From the Publisher:
"SCARY... . HILARIOUS... . STRANGE AND RISKY... . A RIGHT-ON, PITCH-PERFECT NOVEL, WITH WIDE SOCIAL SCOPE, COMIC GENIUS, PAGE-BURNING STORYTELLING MAGIC, AND JUICY CHARACTERS WHO WRENCH YOUR HEART AND GUT." -- WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

Hard-ass Palm Beach County judge Bob Isom Gibbs enjoys sending every 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 ill-wishers are probation officer Kathy Baker's clients, including young Dale Crowe and his psycho uncle Elvin. Suddenly 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 saving his own red neck.

"Elmore Leonard is in a class of one. Not only does he have no equal, he doesn't even have a legitimate contender." -- Dennis Lehane

ELMORE LEONARD has written more than forty books during his highly successful career, many of which have been made into movies. He has been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Leonard lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village, Michigan.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob. Harper Paperbacks, ISBN: 9780062009401 (September, 2010), 326 p., $13.99.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob (UK 2007)

From the Publisher:
When someone delivers an alligator to Judge Bob Gibbs' porch, there's no shortage of suspects - hard-sentencing, womanising redneck 'Maximum Bob' is pretty much the most unpopular man in Florida. Throw into the mix the Crowe clan - about as primitive and aggressive as any alligator - a doped-up doctor on early release with a tag, quick-witted probation officer Kathy Baker, a mermaid and a long-dead slave girl called Wanda, and things get a tad complicated. And inevitably, they don't work out the way you might expect.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob. Phoenix, ISBN: 9780753822395 (March, 2007), 260 p., £6.99.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob (USA 2002)

From the Publisher:
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.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob. HarperTorch, ISBN: 0060084081 (August, 2002), 342 p., $7.50.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob (USA 1998)

From the Publisher:
"Another right-on perfect-pitch novel, with comic genius, page-turning storytelling magic, and juicy characters who wrench your heart and gut. Maximum Bob takes us for a ride up and down the social register, from alligators and alligator poachers to doctors and judges." -- The Washington Post

MAXIMUM BOB
"BRILLIANT... Bristles with Leonard's unquestioned skills: his deft way with words, his cut-to-the-chase understanding of how people act, think, and talk. Leonard's acute ear for dialogue sets his writing apart from others in the genre." -- Detroit Free Press

"ELMORE LEONARD IS THE BEST WRITER OF CRIME FICTION ALIVE!" -- Newsweek

"Book by book... Elmore Leonard is painting an intimate, precise, funny, frightening, and irresistible mural of the American underworld." -- The New Yorker

"ELMORE LEONARD'S MAXIMUM BOB IS MAXIMUM DUTCH!" -- The New York Times Book Review

"MAXIMUM BOB IS ELMORE LEONARD'S BEST... His ears, eyes and recall are so nearly perfect." -- Los Angeles Times

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob. Delta Trade Paperbacks, ISBN: 0385323964 (March, 1998), 295 p., $10.95.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob (UK 1992)

From the Publisher:
Someone is out to get redneck southern judge, nicknamed Maximum Bob, because of the lengthy sentences he hands out. He is the target of a whole chain gang of baddies and they all go to create comedy. The author has also written "Glitz", "Dutch Treat" and "Get Shorty".

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob. Penguin, ISBN: 0140139575 (June, 1992), 295 p., £4.99.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob (USA 1992)

From the Publisher:
"ELMORE LEONARD'S MAXIMUM BOB IS MAXIMUM DUTCH!" -- The New York Times Book Review
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.

"ANOTHER RIGHT-ON PERFECT-PITCH NOVEL WITH WIDE SOCIAL SCOPE, COMIC GENIUS, PAGE-TURNING STORYTELLING MAGIC, AND JUICY CHARACTERS WHO WRENCH YOUR HEART AND GUT." -- The Washington Post

A SELECTION OF THE LITERARY GUILD

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob. Dell Publishing, ISBN: 0440212189 (May, 1992), 326 p., $5.99.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
"Dale Crowe Junior told Kathy Baker, his probation officer, he didn't see where he had done anything wrong. He had gone to the go-go bar to meet a buddy of his, had one beer, that's all, while he was waiting, minding his own business and this go-go whore came up to his table and started giving him a private dance he never asked for." 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 the malefactor isn't going to stop at the second try. There's a long list of suspects: Dale Crowe Junior, who just got an outrageous sentence for a minor crime; his uncle Elvin, a killer on parole, raring to go again; Tommy Vasco, a 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 the 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.

Elmore Leonard: Maximum Bob. Delacorte Press, ISBN: 0385301421 (July, 1991), 295 p., $20.00.