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The Switch

Published
Jan 1978
Main Genre
Suspense Suspense
Rating
Pages
224

About This Book

"My favorite Leonard book….He writes the way Hammett and Chandler might write today, if they sharpened their senses of ironic humor and grew better ears for dialogue."
—Dallas Morning News

"The best writer of crime fiction alive."
—Newsweek

Dangerously eccentric characters, razor-sharp black humor, brilliant dialog, and suspense all rolled into one tight package—that's The Switch, Elmore Leonard's classic tale of a kidnapping gone wrong…or terribly right, depending on how you look at it. The Grand Master whom the New York Times Book Review calls, "the greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever," has written a wry and twisting tale that any of the other all-time greats—Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, John D. MacDonald, James M. Cain, Robert Parker…every noir author who ever walked a detective, cop, or criminal into a shadowy alley—would be thrilled to call their own. Leonard, the man who has given us U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (currently starring in TV's Justified) is at his storytelling best, as a spurned wife decides to take a rightful—and profitable—revenge on her deceiving hubby by teaming up with the two thugs he hired to abduct her.

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Paperback

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Mass Market Paperback
Sep 1984 Bantam ISBN 0553276654
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Mass Market Paperback
Sep 1984 Bantam ISBN 0553260871
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Mass Market Paperback
Oct 1984 Bantam ISBN 0553246062
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Mass Market Paperback
Sep 1990 Dell ISBN 0440208319
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Paperback
Jan 2001 Orion (UK) ISBN 0753819635
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Mass Market Paperback
Jan 2002 HarperTorch ISBN 0060082208
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Trade Paperback
Jan 2012 William Morrow ISBN 0062206133
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Hardcover

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Hardcover
Jun 2002 Turtleback Books ISBN 1417800208
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eBook

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eBook
Jan 2009 Harper ISBN 006182996X
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eBook
Oct 2009 Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 1780223579
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eBook
Oct 2009 HarperCollins ISBN B000FC140I
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eBook
Jun 2025 Penguin ISBN 1802069194
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Audio

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Audio Cassette
May 1990 Chivers Audio Books ISBN 0745161014
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Audio Cassette
Feb 1996 Books on Tape, Inc. ISBN 0736632654
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Downloadable Audio
Aug 2010 HarperAudio ISBN 0061993700
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Audible
Aug 2010 HarperAudio ISBN B003ZX4G5Y
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Large Print

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Trade Paperback
Dec 1993 G.K. Hall & Company ISBN 0816156530
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