I was an Elmore Leonard virgin, perhaps the last one on my block. Then I picked up a copy of his new novel, "LaBrava," and gave myself over to several hours of the most sustained pleasure I'd had from a crime novel since the last good Ross Macdonald, or James Crumley's "Last Good Kiss." Where had I been all these years? "LaBrava" is Leonard's 18th novel, and for a book to work within the genre at a level as high as this means that there have to be a half-dozen or more earlier ones just as precisely made and as satisfying to read….

We can say the same both for LaBrava's creator and the book about his cunning but romantic hero. There's the setting, first of all: the sleazy, decadent beach-front facades, mental health stations, go-go clubs and water-soaked immoralities of contemporary south Miami Beach where antique widows...