Elmore Leonard's Double Dutch Treat: 3 Novels

This hefty volume is a triple treat, really, containing three of ""Dutch'' Leonard's novels that appeared before his belated rise to fame. Each narrative is vivified by the author's tuned-in dialogue, descriptions of widely separated locales and outre characters. The Moonshine War is waged by the entire population of a Kentucky town against one mule-stubborn bootlegger's son whose shocking ploy wins the last battle. In City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, an enraged detective serves justice illegally to a brutal killer who evades prosecution once too often. Gold Coast stars a woman, for a change, equal in ruthlessness to Leonard's macho males. Widow of a Mafia capo, Karen DeCilia broods over her imprisonment in a lavish Florida home. She will lose the house and $4 million by the terms of her husband's will, if she even dates, let alone has sex. The late mobster's associates set a hitman as vicious as the snakes in his native swamps to ``protect'' Karen's honor when she rebels against their orders. Ramifications from her affair with a daring younger man create crises, funny and terrible, that hold the reader in thrall. (April 30)