GET SHORTY by Elmore Leonard

Chili Palmer, a Miami loanshark, is given the assignment of his career - to track down a scam artist who stole three-hundred-thousand dollars from an airline by faking his own death. The job takes him to Los Angeles, where he encounters eccentric movie producers and washed-up actresses, and attempts to sell his own story as an idea for a film.

Leonard's writing style is minimalist and gruff, perfect for the crime genre. He provides piercing insight into the grimy underbelly of the film business, and the reader feels almost tougher as a result of reading it. Get Shorty is a fine example of how books do not always need highly descriptive passages and weepy subplots to be wholly entertaining.