Enter Jackie Nevada

The DirecTV guide description of last week's Justified episode "Money Trap" pretty much says it all:

"Raylan finds himself caught between a foxy grifter and an old nemesis out for revenge..."

Just how Elmore Leonard drew it up. In fact, much of this particular hour was lifted from Raylan, the novel. It includes the long-awaited introduction of Jackie Nevada, the card-shark Butler grad whose sense for banter and nostalgia belies her years on this earth. Her character comes across better on paper than on the show, but it doesn't make her any less attractive.

Jackie is the daughter of professional poker player Reno Nevada, and was almost named "Sierra," which of course leads to some witty back-and-forth with Raylan. She's another one of Elmore Leonard's dark-haired pistols. After all, it was J Lo who played Karen Sisco in Out Of Sight. And it was the very underrated Carla Gugino who played Sisco in the short-lived TV series.

So Jackie is going to be the next one on the "merry-go-round" with Raylan, who seems to attract women with a certain moral flexibility and colorful vocabulary.

The other show-runner from the DirecTV description was the "old nemesis out for revenge." This storyline was so memorable from the book that I thought I had seen the first-run episode before.

Jody, a killer fugitive on the run, fresh off killing two bounty hunters, enlisted the help of a low-rent porn director to find the money he stashed (that Jackie Nevada ran off with), and take out Raylan in the process.

In fact Jody and Kenneth (Kennet') make a sharply-produced video to call out Raylan, who watched it with wide eyes. Raylan and Jody  have their showdown in Raylan's home bar and Raylan pumps him full of bullets.

Jackie of course happens upon the scene while Raylan's gun is still smoking, and of course it doesn't faze her. This sort of action plays better in the book, but it's all very true to the author's vision.

A Sunday Away From The Fray: Kentucky

Even with a whole day to myself, I couldn't bring myself to visit the infamous Harlan County. Despite what you gather from the TV show Justified, it isn't right next door to Lexington, it's a good 2+ hours away.

But I did my homework anyway on the central player of my favorite current TV drama. Harlan County is only home to just over 29,000 souls (96% white), and it has at least that many firearms. I met a Harlan native now based in Lexington, and he was actually wearing a cowboy hat just like Raylan's.

ME:   So what is there to do in Harlan on a day off?

HARLAN:   They do ATV tours that are pretty cool.

ME:   What about stockpiling guns and explosives? Is there like a Boyd Crowder fantasy camp?

HARLAN:   There's still moonshine.

ME:   So ATVs, explosives, and moonshine? Or as they call it in Kentucky...Sunday?

HARLAN:   Sounds about right.

ME:   What about Ellie Mae's trailer out in some Holler?

He laughed and said the show makes life look far more interesting than it really is. But some of the stuff is too real. Like last episode, there are plenty of families that'll blow your head off if you try to take away their government "draw."

The "draw" is the government disability/workers comp check for almost every human that has ever worked in the mines. It's ironic that people so dependent on the government are so against it.

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers has a chapter called "Bloody Harlan" which examines the Culture of Honor that takes place in the American South. The quote that prefaces the chapter is "Die like a man, like your brother did." Generations have killed off each other in Harlan because of an insult directed at one's family.

If I spent the day in Harlan, chances are I would have insulted someone before the day was through. Which would have meant my chances of getting killed would be greater than zero. Especially if I was on the moonshine, setting of explosives while I was ATVing.

So I decided to stay in my Lexington hotel suite and catch up on expense reports. That never killed anyone.

Paper Backtime: Raylan

Finally. It only took 6 weeks. Not that Raylan didn't move, it could've been polished off in 2 days. But getting your book ingestion done isn't about what you read as much as where you read. I haven't been in a school car pick-up lane or in the upright-and-locked position on a plane awaiting takeoff in months.

So while I've been consumed with family activities and feeding this site with dime store opinions, I inched through the latest Elmore Leonard novel - a sturdy companion to the great TV series Justified.

The book is kind of like a TV series in itself, a collection of situations in which our favorite Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens finds himself. There is no over-arching master-criminal like a Mags Bennett or a Robert Quarles on which a given season of the TV series hinges upon.

And the satellite characters aren't really developed, by design. Ava and Winona make brief appearances, and there's backstory, but they don't figure into any of the storylines. Boyd Crowder has a role, but it's more as mining company exec lady's right-hand man, than as Raylan's best "frenemy."

Raylan's conversations with his boss Art Mullen are still priceless.

The characters that are best-drawn are the series of criminals and fugitives that are all clever enough to have some success, but stupid enough to try to get around or through Raylan:

Dickie and Coover Crowe (Bennetts in the TV series), brain-dead sons of Pervis Crowe (the Mags Bennett-type) and bumbling pot dealers.

Layla, the cold-blooded OR nurse that cuts out kidneys in hotel bathtubs and sells them back to the victims as parts.

Delroy, the strip club owner who gets his girls pumped up on oxy to rob banks.

Elmore Leonard is an equal opportunity portrayer of bad guys. Man, woman, rich, poor, white, black, or other - they all fit in Harlan County, Kentucky. And the writer's top-notch dialogue makes them all engaging enough.

Raylan is just as quick-triggered as we know and love, putting down criminals or blasting the hat off some thug muscle just to make a point. And as far as the borderline women go who tempt Raylan, he stays all-business. Strike that, rather primarily business.

There's Jackie Nevada, the 23-year old college poker phenom who skips on the cops after she loses 20 Grand at a raided card game before she winds up on Raylan's radar, makes all her money back and a whole lot more, and gets Raylan to...

THE END