What do you think?
Rate this book
The Olympian
Five people travel to a Mexican, Cartel-owned, all-inclusive, resort for different Johnny, who escaped his bondsman and stole a trunk load of money from his bookie, hides at his uncle’s resort. Gage, the bondsman, travels to Mexico to get his daddy’s handcuffs back from Johnny. Murdock, the bookie, travels to Mexico with two associates to get Johnny, the money, and his 10% fine. To do so, Murdock attempts to blackmail Samuel, an Olympic Athlete, who’s facing possible sanctions and attempting the Olympics for the sixth time. Samuel is in Mexico for a family vacation, and to contemplate his future; he meets a girl. Jeanie, a reporter and Samuel’s ex-girlfriend, travels to Mexico with her cameraman to get an exclusive interview with Samuel about his future, and, at the request of Samuel’s family, attend Samuel’s intervention.
375 pages, Paperback
Published June 20, 2019
1 person is currently reading
5 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 18, 2020
I feel for writers in thrall to Elmore Leonard, because Leonard's deceptively-light-on-their-feet crime novels seem much easier to imitate than they are, and efforts at homage often fall fall short of the master.
Mark Atley's THE OLYMPIAN is a case in point. It captures something of the flavor of a Leonard tale, with its laconic and occasionally lethal characters gathered at a Cancun resort, planning all sorts of slinky capers, control stratagems and convoluted redemptions. But it's far too heavy on repetitive exposition (far too often characters say something in dialogue and then repeat it in narrative, which in essence is the author doing the work of interpreting the character for the reader, which says not only that the author doesn't trust the reader to figure out what the characters are saying for and about themselves, and also saying that the author doesn't trust his own dialogue and action convey their meanings to the reader). And it's far too light on memorable incident (with all the scheming and willingness to kill, there should be more of an incremental sense of suspenseful danger and a body count to match) to keep the pages turning. There's too much circular talk and too little acting on it. As Janet Maslin put it in a New York Times appraisal of Leonard: "His flair is hard to borrow, because so much of it depends on what he did not write, not what he did."
After a while THE OLYMPIAN makes you feel as if you're trapped at the end of a bar with an amiable drunk who can't stop sharing his stories but can't seem to find the handle on them, which is something you could never accuse Leonard of being. In Leonard's books, characters are never just sharing stories or sounding off — they're revealing important shadings of themselves that prove integral to the plotting — and sex is never about the athleticism, but about the agendas the characters bring to the act. Leonard's gift is putting several things in motion at once as characters sit and talk, sit and drink, sit and contemplate each others' bodies with either lethal, lustful or luxury-enabling intent. Love in a Leonard book is only a little bit chemical, and a lot of finding its way through via action and the right word at the right moment.
Add in poor editing — I'm a professional editor myself and could easily have trimmed 15,000 words from this novel without losing a step of plot advancement or character development — and a truly unfortunate cover, and I can't quite recommend THE OLYMPIAN despite a handful of funny and poignant moments, and a scattering of spot-on dialogue bits.
That said, I respect Mark Atley's ambition and his obvious reverence for his inspirations and sources, and suspect that he's got better novels in him as he develops his craft. This novel cannot be accused of unforgivable sins. There's no laziness here, or slavishness to shopworn tropes, merely a sideways execution of a singularly worthy labor. As such, Atley is one to watch. I'm certain he's got better novels in him.
Mark Atley's THE OLYMPIAN is a case in point. It captures something of the flavor of a Leonard tale, with its laconic and occasionally lethal characters gathered at a Cancun resort, planning all sorts of slinky capers, control stratagems and convoluted redemptions. But it's far too heavy on repetitive exposition (far too often characters say something in dialogue and then repeat it in narrative, which in essence is the author doing the work of interpreting the character for the reader, which says not only that the author doesn't trust the reader to figure out what the characters are saying for and about themselves, and also saying that the author doesn't trust his own dialogue and action convey their meanings to the reader). And it's far too light on memorable incident (with all the scheming and willingness to kill, there should be more of an incremental sense of suspenseful danger and a body count to match) to keep the pages turning. There's too much circular talk and too little acting on it. As Janet Maslin put it in a New York Times appraisal of Leonard: "His flair is hard to borrow, because so much of it depends on what he did not write, not what he did."
After a while THE OLYMPIAN makes you feel as if you're trapped at the end of a bar with an amiable drunk who can't stop sharing his stories but can't seem to find the handle on them, which is something you could never accuse Leonard of being. In Leonard's books, characters are never just sharing stories or sounding off — they're revealing important shadings of themselves that prove integral to the plotting — and sex is never about the athleticism, but about the agendas the characters bring to the act. Leonard's gift is putting several things in motion at once as characters sit and talk, sit and drink, sit and contemplate each others' bodies with either lethal, lustful or luxury-enabling intent. Love in a Leonard book is only a little bit chemical, and a lot of finding its way through via action and the right word at the right moment.
Add in poor editing — I'm a professional editor myself and could easily have trimmed 15,000 words from this novel without losing a step of plot advancement or character development — and a truly unfortunate cover, and I can't quite recommend THE OLYMPIAN despite a handful of funny and poignant moments, and a scattering of spot-on dialogue bits.
That said, I respect Mark Atley's ambition and his obvious reverence for his inspirations and sources, and suspect that he's got better novels in him as he develops his craft. This novel cannot be accused of unforgivable sins. There's no laziness here, or slavishness to shopworn tropes, merely a sideways execution of a singularly worthy labor. As such, Atley is one to watch. I'm certain he's got better novels in him.
Displaying 1 of 1 review