What a difference 14 years makes!
That’s the amount of time between the publication of Elmore Leonard’s novel The Switch (1978) and the appearance of his Rum Punch (1992), both set in South Florida. It’s also the amount of time between the events of the first novel and those of the second.
Ordell Robbie, Louis Gara and Melanie Ralston were characters in the first book, and they appear again in Rum Punch, although much the worse for wear.
Louis was part of a cute couple in The Switch, getting up close and personal with the attractive, early 40s Mickey Dawson, the hostage that he and Ordell and their Nazi-worshipping cohort Richard Monk had taken in a wrong-headed kidnapping.
It was wrong-headed because Ordell, 31, and Louis, 34, didn’t know what they were doing, but it was especially wrong-headed because they kidnapped a woman whose husband had just filed for divorce and didn’t want her back. A woman who also turned out to be able to turn the tables on them, big time.
Melanie was the 21-year-old mistress that Mickey’s husband had stashed away in Jamaica, close enough for him to visit from his Florida home often, but not close enough for Mickey to find out.
Melanie had been sleeping her away around the world from one rich man’s bed to another’s, always with an eye for the main chance, and, midway through the novel, she saw her chance. Why not join forces with Ordell? (This was after Ordell threw her in the ocean far from the island and threatened to leave her there if she didn’t reveal the whereabouts of Mickey’s husband.)
All in all, The Switch was a light romp about a crew of bunglers who were so inept at crime that they were attractively goofy. Louis was a typical Leonard protagonist, an aimless, small-time crook who was a good guy anyway. Ordell was a bit more professional but still hapless. The amoral Melanie was young and sexy and knew how to use it.
Ordell’s courier
Fourteen years later, however, Louis, just out of prison a third time for a half-assed spree of bank robberies, is harder and more aimless and nearby fifty. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
After all those years of sitting in the sun at the beach, Melanie’s skin is dry and damaged, and her breasts aren’t as perky as they used to be, and she’s realizing that hanging out with Ordell isn’t like living the high life with the rich guys she used to have. She can get kind of bitchy.
And then there’s Ordell who, at 45, is looking, still, for a big score to set him in luxury for the rest of his life. This time it’s with gun sales, but he needs to get cash from his bank deposits in Jamaica without the American authorities finding out.
That’s why Jackie Burke, a 44-year-old stewardess on the tiny airline connecting the island and Florida, is his courier. But one of Ordell’s underlings gets picked up by the cops and squeals on Jackie, leading to her arrest with $50,000 in cash in her flight bag — and a small bag of cocaine, a present for Melanie that Jackie didn’t know about.
A lot of violence
There was relatively little violence in The Switch, and the bulk of that came in a shootout between the Hitler-loving Richard and the cops that he lost.
There’s a lot in Rum Punch, pretty much always at point-blank range and usually by Ordell. But Melanie also gets in the act, and so does Louis.
And so does Ray Nicolette, the ATF agent who’s using Jackie to get to Ordell.
Along for the ride
Ultimately, though, it’s Jackie who ends up using everyone else in her effort to get out from under the drug charge and get on with her life, and, if that means finding a way to swindle Ordell and bamboozle Nicholette, so be it.
She’s the center of this Leonard novel, and, as usually happens, the central character pairs off with one of the others, in this case the bail bondsman Max Cherry, a man about fifty, long separated from his wife, a bit of an aimless guy but a good guy, to be sure.
After meeting Jackie, Max is aimless no longer, and he does everything he can to help her carry out her scheme, knowing that the two of them have a strong emotional connection but also recognizing that Jackie may just be using him before driving off into the sunset.
He doesn’t care. He’s along for the ride, and he’s happy.
So is the reader.
Patrick T. Reardon
12.18.25
Written by : Patrick T. Reardon
For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.