DJIBOUTI by Elmore Leonard - SIGNED FIRST EDITION BOOK

Elmore Leonard's tack-sharp dialogue and comic underworld characters have been drawing accolades and an ever growing base of fans, as he goes exotic with this killer story of modern-day pirates off the coast of East Africa.

Dara Barr, a documentary filmmaker newly arrived in Djibouti to make a film about pirates as a follow-up to her Oscar-winning Katrina documentary. Dara is fascinated by the pirate life, and with her 6-foot-6 assistant Xavier — a seafarer who’s circumnavigated the globe over 50 times — they rent a small boat less than 30 feet long and sail off into the Indian Ocean in search of pirates. Dara is convinced that there's another side to their story; she's sympathetic to the pirates and wants to shoot them in a movie and explain their problems — how they've lost their fishing grounds, which have been contaminated, and now they have to resort to piracy. But she may find far more than she wants, or expects, and the pair stumble into a thicket of intrigue even before they're on the open water.

Rogues they encounter include a "whirlwind Texas entrepreneur" sailing around the world; a crooked diplomat in league with a charismatic pirate, both eyeing a payday; and a pair of kidnapped al-Qaeda operatives - one an American citizen with a bounty on his head. Everyone has an angle or two, and Leonard's hallmark breakneck pacing, crackling dialogue, and scalpel-sharp prose kick in for a wild ride.