Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard

This review will be short and sweet because Elmore Leonard is not an author who requires note taking and analysis.  Do not take this as an insult.  Sometimes I read a book just to be entertained, and this one fits that description.

I originally purchased this novel for three reasons: the title, if you were educated in a Catholic school during the 1950s or 60s, you understand; the author, I had heard about Elmore Leonard but never read anything by him, and it was recommended by an employee of the late great Borders Books on Hylan Drive in Henrietta, New York.  It has waited patiently on my bookshelf.

What a fun read with quirky characters!  From the book jacket: 

Father Terry Dunn hears a lot of strange confessions.  After all, he’s the only priest for miles in the lingering aftermath of the worst massacre Rwanda has ever seen.  And Fr. Terry, who has forty-seven bodies in his church that need burying, has just heard one confession too many.  After exacting from them a chilling penance, Fr. Terry has to get out of Africa – pronto.  Now Terry is coming home to Detroit, where a five-year-old tax-fraud indictment is hanging over him.  Is Terry Dunn really a priest?

And that is the entire teaser I will give.  Throw in some hoodlums, a female stand-up comic recently released from prison, a not so powerful mob boss, and several people good at looking the other way, and together with Leonard's superb realistic writing, you have a hell of a good story.  And the best thing about it is…it is the only book I have read by this prolific writer.

Leonard, Elmore.  Pagan Babies. New York: Delacorte Press, 2000. Print