Besides a collection of his unpublished short stories appearing the year after his death in 2013, Picket Line is the first new fiction from Elmore Leonard in 11 years. An unpublished novella from his archive, Picket Line is bundled in with a couple of previously published short stories, Chick Killer and Ice Man, as they match Picket Line’s theme of law enforcement figures butting heads with ethnic minorities.
I have really enjoyed some of Leonard’s novels previously (Raylan, Road Dogs, Be Cool) so I’d like to say this is a hidden gem, but unfortunately Picket Line is actually quite a dull story. It’s about Mexican fruit pickers in California, some of whom are trying to form a union and strike against their corporate overlords, while local law enforcement does their best to disrupt their protest.
The prose is very smooth and Leonard’s dialogue is as solid as it ever was - my main gripe is that nothing really happens for much of it. We meet the characters, their roles are established, and then they stand around performing those roles until something finally does happen towards the end (nothing that exciting) and then it’s over. It’s a very boring read.
Chick Killer and Ice Man are similarly forgettable - more so given their brevity. Karen Cisco recounts a difficult arrest in Chick Killer and some native Americans get bullied by an ICE agent at a rodeo in Ice Man. Again, well written, just not at all interesting to read.
The surprise of seeing a new book from a dead author is what prompted me to pick up Picket Line but, besides that novelty, there isn’t much here to attract readers. One for the fans only, though I think if you’re a crime fiction fan and haven’t read any Elmore Leonard, check out his other, more well-known books over this one - he’s definitely an author worth reading.
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