Elmore Leonard

Personal

Born October 11, 1925, in New Orleans, LA; son of Elmore John (an automotive executive) and Flora Amelia (Rive) Leonard; married Beverly Cline, July 30, 1949 (divorced May 24, 1977); married Joan Shepard, September 15, 1979 (died January 13, 1993); married Christine Kent, August 19, 1993; children: (first marriage) Jane Jones, Peter, Christopher, William, Katherine Dudley. Education: University of Detroit, Ph.B., 1950. Religion: Roman Catholic.

Addresses

Home—Birmingham, MI. Office—c/o Michael Siegel and Associates, 8929 Rosewood Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90048.

Career

Writer, television program creator, executive consultant, and producer since 1967. Campbell-Ewald advertising agency, Detroit, MI, 1950-61; writer of industrial and educational films, 1961-63; director, Elmore Leonard Advertising Company, 1963-66. Military service: U.S. Naval Reserve, 1943-46.

Member

Writers Guild of America, West, Mystery Writers of America, Western Writers of America, Authors League of America, Authors Guild.

Awards, Honors

Hombre was named one of the twenty-five best western novels of all time, Western Writers of America, 1977; Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination, Mystery Writers of America, best original paperback novel, 1978, for The Switch; Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination, Mystery Writers of America, best novel, 1981, for Split Images; Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mystery Writers of America, best novel, 1983, for La Brava; Literary Lions Award, New York Public Library, 1989; North American Hammett Prize for best crime book of the year, International Association of Crime Writers, 1991, for Maximum Bob; Grand Master Award, Mystery Writers of America, 1992, for "individuals who, by a lifetime of achievement, have proved themselves preeminent in the craft of the mystery and dedicated to the advancement of the genre"; Doctor of Humane Letters, Florida Atlantic University, 1996, University of Detroit Mercy, 1997, and University of Michigan, 2000.

Writings

WESTERN NOVELS

The Bounty Hunters, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1953, reprinted, Bantam (New York, NY), 1985.

The Law at Randado, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1955, reprinted, Bantam (New York, NY), 1985.

Escape from 5 Shadows, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1956, reprinted, Bantam (New York, NY), 1985.

Last Stand at Saber River, Dell (New York, NY), 1957, reprinted, Bantam (New York, NY), 1985, published as Lawless River, R. Hale (London, England), 1959, published as Stand on the Saber, Corgi (London, England), 1960.

Hombre, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1961, reprinted, 1984.

Valdez Is Coming, Gold Medal (New York, NY), 1970.

Forty Lashes Less One, Bantam (New York, NY), 1972.

Gunsights, Bantam (New York, NY), 1979.

CRIME AND MYSTERY NOVELS

The Big Bounce, Gold Medal (New York, NY), 1969, revised edition, Armchair Detective (New York, NY), 1989.

The Moonshine War (also see below), Doubleday (New York, NY), 1969, reprinted, Dell (New York, NY), 1988.

Mr. Majestyk (also see below), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1974.

Fifty-two Pickup, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1974.

Swag (also see below), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1976, published as Ryan's Rules, Dell (New York, NY), 1976.

Unknown Man, No. 89, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1977.

The Hunted (also see below), Dell (New York, NY), 1977.

The Switch, Bantam (New York, NY), 1978.

City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1980.

Gold Coast (also see below), Bantam (New York, NY), 1980, revised edition, 1985.

Split Images (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1981.

Cat Chaser (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1982.

Stick (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.

LaBrava (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.

Glitz, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1985.

Bandits, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1987.

Touch, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1987.

Freaky Deaky, Morrow (New York, NY), 1988.

Killshot, Morrow (New York, NY), 1989.

Get Shorty, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1990.

Maximum Bob, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1991.

Rum Punch, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1992.

Pronto, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1993.

Riding the Rap, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1995.

Out of Sight, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1996.

Cuba Libre, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1998.

Be Cool, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1999.

Pagan Babies, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2000.

Tishomingo Blues, Morrow (New York, NY), 2002.

Mr. Paradise, Morrow (New York, NY) 2004.

OMNIBUS VOLUMES

Elmore Leonard's Dutch Treat (contains The Hunted, Swag, and Mr. Majestyk), introduction by George F. Will, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1985.

Elmore Leonard's Double Dutch Treat (contains City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, The Moonshine War, and Gold Coast), introduction by Bob Greene, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1986.

Three Complete Novels (contains LaBrava, Cat Chaser, and Split Images), Wings Books (New York, NY), 1992.

The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1998.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #1 (contains The Bounty Hunters, Forty Lashes Less One, and Gunsights), Delta (New York, NY), 1998.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #2 (contains Escape from Five Shadows, Last Stand at Saber River, and The Law at Randado), Delta (New York, NY), 1998.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #3 (contains Valdez Is Coming and Hombre), Delta (New York, NY), 1999.

SCREENPLAYS

The Moonshine War (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1970.

Joe Kidd, Universal, 1972.

Mr. Majestyk (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), United Artists, 1974.

High Noon, Part 2: The Return of Will Kane, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 1980.

(With Joseph C. Stinson) Stick (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), Universal, 1985.

(With Jon Steppling) 52 Pick-Up (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), Cannon Group, 1986.

(With Fred Walton) The Rosary Murders (based on the novel by William X. Kienzle), New Line Cinema, 1987.

Desperado, National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), 1988.

(With Joe Borrelli) Cat Chaser (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), Viacom, 1989.

(With Quentin Tarantino) Jackie Brown (based on Leonard's novel Rum Punch), Miramax, 1997.

OTHER

(Contributor) Dennis Wholey, editor, The Courage to Change: Personal Conversations about Alcoholism, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1984.

Notebooks, Lord John (Northridge, CA), 1990.

(Contributor) Carl Hiaasen, editor, Naked Came the Manatee: A Novel, Putnam (New York, NY), 1996.

When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories, Morrow (New York, NY), 2002.

A Coyote's in the House (children's book), Morrow (New York, NY), 2004.

Also contributor of about thirty short stories and novelettes to Argosy, Dime Western, Saturday Evening Post, Zane Grey's Western Magazine, and other publications during the 1950s; author of filmscripts for Encyclopedia Britannica Films, including Settlement of the Mississippi Valley, Boy of Spain, Frontier Boy, and Julius Caesar, and of a recruiting film for the Franciscans.

Adaptations

"3:10 to Yuma" was adapted for film by Halsted Welles and released by Columbia, 1957; "The Tall T" was adapted for film by Burt Kennedy and released by Columbia, 1957; Hombre was adapted for film by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank and released by Twentieth Century-Fox, 1967; The Big Bounce was adapted for film by Robert Dozier and released by Warner Bros., 1969, remade and released by Warner Bros., 2004; Valdez Is Coming was adapted for film by Roland Kibbee and David Rayfiel and released by United Artists, 1971; Fifty-Two Pick-Up was adapted for film by Max Jack and released as The Ambassador (also known as The Peacemaker) by Cannon, 1984; Glitz was filmed for television by NBC, 1988; Cat Chaser was adapted for film by Alan Sharp and James Borrelli, 1989, and released by LIVE Home Video, 1991; The Law at Randado was adapted for film and released as Border Shootout by Turner Home Entertainment, 1990; Split Images was adapted as a television movie, 1992; Get Shorty was adapted for film by Scott Frank and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists in 1995; Pronto was adapted for a television movie and broadcast by Showtime, 1996; Touch was adapted for film by Paul Schrader and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists in 1997; Last Stand at Saber River was adapted for a television movie and broadcast by TNT, 1997; Rum Punch was adapted for film by Quentin Tarantino and released as Jackie Brown, Miramax, 1997; Gold Coast was adapted as a television movie, Showtime, 1997; Out of Sight was adapted as a film, Universal, 1998; Maximum Bob was adapted as a television series by ABC in 1998; Out of Sight, directed by Steven Soderbergh, screenplay written by Scott Frank, was filmed by Universal, 1998; Karen Sisco (based on characters from Out of Sight) was adapted as a television series by ABC, 2003; Be Cool was adapted as a film, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2004.

Sidelights

Elmore Leonard has been called the greatest living writer of crime fiction. His novels have been compared to the works of the acknowledged masters of the genre, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Critics praise Leonard's uncanny ear for dialogue, and many claim that his best fiction, steeped in the recklessness and violence of criminal America, offers significant commentary on contemporary life. It took thirty years of hard work, however, and the publication of more than twenty novels, before Leonard achieved the recognition that has since become commonplace. His first books were Westerns, which he wrote not out of literary ambition, but as a potentially lucrative form of entertainment. Motivated by the waning interest in Westerns, Leonard took up the subject of crime. His audience grew, and his books are now regularly on best-seller lists. With several film adaptations to his credit, he has become that rare, marketable author whose work transcends the supposed limits of popular fiction. Leonard has branched out in unexpected ways, publishing his first children's book, A Coyote's in the House, in 2004. "Elmore Leonard may only write crime stories," observed Times Literary Supplement reviewer David Papineau, "but he writes rings around most authors with loftier ambitions."

Leonard was born October 11, 1925, in New Orleans, Louisiana, a city he would revisit in fiction. Early in his childhood, Leonard's family relocated to Detroit, Michigan. His interest in writing was sparked while he was in the fifth grade. Inspired by the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Leonard wrote and staged a short play set during the First World War. He continued to write throughout his school years, contributing stories to the school newspaper while a student at University of Detroit High. Shortly after graduating from high school, Leonard joined the U.S. Navy and served in the South Pacific during the Second World War. At the end of the war in 1946, he returned to Michigan, enrolled at the University of Detroit, and began work at an advertising agency. After completing his degree, Leonard continued in advertising and made his first serious attempts at fiction. "I'd get up early, write, then go crank out zingy copy for Chevrolet trucks," Leonard recalled for Time magazine reviewer J. D. Reed.

Influenced by Hemingway

In the early 1950s, Leonard once explained, he studiously read the novels of Ernest Hemingway. Admiring the author's restrained style, Leonard made up his mind to develop a "kind of lean, deadpan delivery" in his own writing. He experimented with this style by writing Western novels because he "liked Western movies a lot." His first fiction publication, a short novel titled "Apache Agent," sold to Argosy magazine for $90. By the end of the 1950s Leonard had published five novels and roughly thirty stories, most in magazines like Dime Western. Two of his works, the novel 3:10 to Yuma, and a short story, "The Tall T," were adapted for film. This marked the beginning of Leonard's ongoing relationship with Hollywood, where producers continue to capitalize on the action, suspense, and quirky characters in his fiction.

Despite his success, Leonard abandoned fiction altogether when the Western craze subsided in the early 1960s. During this lull he worked as a freelance copywriter for several clients in the auto industry and, eventually, opened his own advertising agency. Leonard also wrote educational film scripts for Encyclopedia Britannica, including a documentary on Julius Caesar, and several informational film scripts for area companies. "I was busy making a living," he once stated. "That was all kind of exciting. But I still couldn't wait, really, for an opportunity to have enough money at one time to get back into a book." Leonard got that chance when the film rights to his last Western novel, Hombre, sold for $10,000. Two years later he was able to leave advertising and start writing fiction full time.

Leonard's return to fiction in the late 1960s marked the beginning of his career as a crime writer. His first effort, The Big Bounce, was rejected by eighty-four publishers before being accepted by Gold Medal. Questioning the wisdom of his move to crime fiction, Leonard wrote two more Westerns, Valdez Is Coming and Forty Lashes Less One. Again, Hollywood played a pivotal role in his career: film rights to The Big Bounce sold for $50,000, giving him the resources and incentive to continue working in his new genre. Leonard produced roughly one book annually for the next several years. By the late 1970s he was an established author of crime fiction. The Switch and Split Images were nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe Award. Leonard's novel Stick, featuring a car thief caught on the wrong side of the mob, received considerable critical attention. It was also adapted as a film starring and directed by Burt Reynolds. Even though Leonard later said the film version was inaccurate, the movie's popularity boosted interest in his work.

Gains Critical Favor with LaBrava

LaBrava, Leonard's next novel, brought him to the foreground of crime fiction. Set in Miami, a favorite Leonard location, the novel tracks the misadventures of Joseph LaBrava, a former IRS and FBI agent who has retired to pursue a career as a freelance photographer. LaBrava's new lifestyle is interrupted when he photographs a murder. While eluding the murderers, he becomes entangled with an ex-movie star. When her plan to defraud the mob goes awry, LaBrava regains his lawman's conscience and makes sure justice is done. Applauding the novel's engrossing plot and convincing dialogue, reviewers hailed Leonard as a master craftsman. LaBrava earned the Edgar Allen Poe Award, which had eluded Leonard on two previous occasions, when the Mystery Writers of America selected it as the best book of 1983.

Critics praised the polished style in LaBrava, and they were startled by Leonard's grasp of the criminal mentality. His understanding was built on research conducted in police stations, bars, and courtrooms in and around Detroit. For years, Leonard had been in the habit of inconspicuously listening to the conversations of cops and crooks to absorb the peculiarities of their speech and vocabulary. Similarly, he employed a researcher to document the cities, through photographs and interviews, where his novels are set. Following LaBrava, Leonard applied this technique to Atlantic City, the setting of his first best-seller, Glitz.

After a Miami police officer, Vincent, is wounded outside his local supermarket, he travels to Puerto Rico to recuperate. In Puerto Rico he is seen by the homicidal Teddy Magyk, a man he had once arrested. From there the action relocates to Atlantic City, where Vincent and Magyk pursue one another through a carnival of gangsters and gamblers. Glitz drew rave reviews from several critics. AuthorStephen King, for instance, writing in New York Times Book Review, compared Leonard to Charles Dickens, whose depictions of the underworld in nineteenth-century London are considered masterpieces of English literature.

In the late 1980s Leonard produced four novels that were all well received but failed to earn the same high marks as Glitz. Departing from his typical locales, Leonard set Get Shorty in Hollywood. The plot turns on the pursuits of Chili Davis, a loan shark from Miami who travels to Las Vegas to collect a debt from a man who has faked his own death. While in Las Vegas, Chili agrees to help out an old friend by collecting money owed to his friend by Harry Zimm, a former producer of horror films. Once Chili arrives in Hollywood, he discovers that Zimm is also indebted to Bo Catlett, one of the novel's villains. Finding himself caught between Zimm and Catlett, Chili successfully manages a complicated series of double-crosses. All the while, Chili has been bitten by the Hollywood bug, and he attempts to sell his story—that is, the story of a loan shark who comes to Hollywood. To his great amusement, Chili realizes the power brokers of the film industry are not much different from the crooks he has worked for all his life.

"It would be easy to assume that what Mr. Leonard is saying here is that the con men are right at home in the movie business," wrote Nora Ephron in the New York Times Book Review, "but it seems to me he's making an even wittier point, which is that even tough guys want to be in the movies." Commenting on Leonard's familiarity with Hollywood in Los Angeles Times Book Review, Charles Champlin wrote that Get Shorty is "at heart a portrait of the community, less angry than [Nathanael West's] Day of the Locusts, but not less devastating in its tour of the industry's soiled follies and the gaminess beneath the grandeurs." Publishers Weekly reviewer Sybil Steinberg announced that "Chili and his story are Leonard's best yet." Get Shorty was released as a major motion picture, starring John Travolta in the role of Chili.

With Maximum Bob, Leonard returned to the familiar territory of South Florida. The title character, Maximum Bob Gibbs, is a racist circuit court judge feared throughout the county for his unnecessarily stiff sentences. Bob is trying to rid himself of his wife, Leanne, who was traumatized by an alligator and now believes that she has the spirit of a twelve-year-old slave girl, Wanda Grace, living inside her. While Bob concocts schemes to drive away Leanne, former convicts who have suffered under his harsh sentences begin to seek revenge. The female protagonist, public defender Kathy Baker, has been discriminated against by "Maximum Bob." She joins forces with police sergeant Gary Hammond to unravel the mysteries surrounding the judge and his would-be assassins.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, writing in the New York Times, found Kathy Baker "appealing, easy to identify with and apt at the sort of decisive action one expects of an Elmore Leonard hero." He considered the novel generally less successful than its main character, however, noting that "Maximum Bob arouses one to feel the minimum." Times Literary Supplement reviewer Savkar Altinel was equally critical: "This is low-life America stripped of its despair and turned into a freak show for the amusement of those who are better off." In the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Clifford Irving was more complimentary. "Leonard, like any true comic, has a melancholy view of the world and its primitive denizens," Irving wrote. "Without moralizing, he is telling us—no, he is showing us—how rotten life is in the heartland of the USA." Novelist Barry Gifford's review in the New York Times Book Review was also laudatory. "Nobody I've ever read sets up pace, mood, and sound better than Elmore Leonard," Gifford observed.

Leonard followed Maximum Bob with Rum Punch, the story of Jackie Burke, a flight attendant who uses her position to smuggle cash into Florida for a gun runner named Ordell. Ordell and his dimwitted partner, Louis, are revived from the earlier Leonard novel, The Switch. They are on the verge of making a big score when Jackie is caught by the police. To avoid both jail and Ordell's revenge, Jackie concocts a scam involving a bondsman named Max Cherry. In the New York Times Book Review, Ann Arensberg wrote, "Outpacing the classic hard-boiled novel, leaving the British detective novel in the dust, Elmore Leonard has compressed Rum Punch into almost pure drama, as close to playwriting as novel writing can get." However, the violence of the villains provoked a negative response from other critics. New Statesman and Society reviewer John Williams was disturbed by changes in the characters of Ordell and Louis. "In The Switch they were good-bad, in Rum Punch they're plain evil," he stated. Yet, Michael Dirda noted in Washington Post Book World that the novel has a philosophical theme: "Beneath its fast-pacing surface, Rum Punch is a novel about growing old, about the way time changes us, about the dream of starting over and its cost."

Leonard's next novel, Pronto, recounts the exploits of Harry Arno, a Miami bookmaker who is skimming profits from his boss, Jimmy Capotorto. Harry flees when federal investigators pressure him into squealing on Jimmy by threatening to tell Jimmy about his indiscretions. Harry settles in Rapallo, an Italian city on the Mediterranean, where he had once been stationed during the Second World War. The city was also the scene of Harry's first and only murder, which he committed while he was in the service. He is nostalgic for the war years, and the location holds additional appeal because of his fondness for the poetry of Ezra Pound, who lived there as a dissident. Rapallo is no haven for Harry, however. He is pursued by a pair of hit men and a Stetson-wearing U.S. Marshall, Raylan Givens, who wants to take Harry and his girlfriend Joyce back into protective custody.

Dick Lochte of the Los Angeles Times Book Review commended Pronto for its blend of "the romantic notions of the past, when honor and justice and a woman's love were things to be cherished, with Leonard's particularly adroit insight into the harsh realities and tensions of today." In the New York Times Book Review Teresa Carpenter found Pronto "fun," but not so appealing as some of Leonard's earlier works. She noted that he fails to evoke Rapallo with the same realism he brings to Detroit and Miami. Times Literary Supplement reviewer Karl Miller concluded the novel was not Leonard's most convincing.

Leonard revived the characters Harry Arno and Raylan Givens in Riding the Rap. This time around, Harry has been kidnapped by a couple of would-be terrorists who want to get at his hidden money. Harry's former girlfriend Joyce, who has since become Raylan's companion, prevails on Raylan to find and rescue Harry. Between his regular assignments, Raylan pieces together the clues that eventually lead him to Harry. Along the way Raylan crosses paths with a score of oddball characters, including a mysterious psychic named Reverend Dawn. Impressed by Leonard's depiction of Reverend Dawn, Los Angeles Times Book Review critic Leonard Michaels claimed she was unique in literature. "She is absurd, convincing, good, bad, weak, effective, frightened, daring, and the whole plot turns on her actions," Michaels observed. "Whoever plays Reverend Dawn in the movie has a chance to make cultural history." Critiquing Riding the Rap in the New York Times Book Review, Martin Amis called Leonard a "literary genius." According to Amis, the author "possesses gifts—of ear and eye, of timing and phrasing—that even the most indolent and snobbish masters of the mainstream must vigorously covet."

Salon magazine reviewer Charles Taylor found Out of Sight, a 1996 work, to be "Leonard's most satisfying book in a long time." As the novel opens, Karen Sisco, a Deputy U.S. Marshall dressed in a Chanel suit, is kidnapped by escaped convict Jack Foley. Jack forces Karen into the trunk of her car and climbs in alongside her as one of his accomplices drives. The two become strangely well acquainted in the trunk. When Jack eludes Karen and escapes the law a second time, she becomes part of a team that sets out to apprehend him. She meets him again in Detroit, and they have a brief romantic encounter. However, like an earlier Leonard hero, Joseph La-Brava, Karen puts aside her infatuation in the name of the law and makes sure Jack is returned to prison.

Tackles Historical Fare

In Cuba Libre, Leonard reaches for a broader audience than those he addresses in his crime novels and westerns, by combining elements of both genres. Set in Cuba around the time of the Spanish-American War, Cuba Libre combines adventure, history, and romance with the requisite nefarious goings-on. In a move worthy of one of his novels, Leonard arranged to have Cuba Libre published on the one hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine. In Cuba Libre, Ben Tyler is a cowboy of the bank-robbing kind; in his vigilantism, he only robs banks that contain the money of people who owe him money. When he grows tired of robbing banks, Tyler joins his friend Charlie Burke in a scheme to export horses to Cuba. They arrive in Havana just as the Spanish-American War breaks out, and suddenly these petty thieves are embroiled in the larger conflict. A Kirkus Reviews critic noted that the "three-cornered conflict"—the heroes and the sugar baron whose price they must meet, the U.S. government and Spain, and the American capitalists's interests in Cuba—"is nothing more than a classic Leonard scam writ large," with the small scam dovetailing smoothly into the larger "scams" of the political powers. Lehmann-Haupt wrote in the New York Times: "Cuba Libre is unusually rich in period atmosphere," primarily because Leonard is "as always, so uncannily at home with the slang and terminology of the times." Also writing in the New York Times Book Review, Pico Iyer criticized the lack of character development in the novel: "With so much plot . . . there is almost no room for character or emotion." Lehmann-Haupt stressed that the novel is a political satire, though "Leonard is too good a story teller to let . . . political views shape his characters."

Be Cool is a sequel to Get Shorty, once again featuring the dubious Hollywood mogul Chili Palmer. Always in search of film plots, Chili decides to help a struggling young singer make it in the music industry, just to see whether or not her story would make a good movie. In short order, Chili discovers that he has run afoul of the girl's previous manager, the Russian mafia, and a gang of rap artists. To quote Anthony Wilson-Smith in Maclean's, "The world that Leonard sketches has remained unchanged—a place where moral ambiguity abounds, and sudden, shocking violence is never more than a flick of the page away. Be Cool, like Get Shorty, skewers the pretensions of the entertainment industry." A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that Chili "remains a compulsively appealing character, . . . retaining his immaculate cool in lethal situations." In Booklist, David Pitt suggested that the novel "reaches a level of comic surrealism that its predecessor only approached." And Lehmann-Haupt, in his New York Times review, commended Be Cool as "thoroughly entertaining. . . . [The] plot wrinkles involve a very inside knowledge of the music industry. Mr. Leonard seems to have mastered it." The reviewer concluded: "Wonderful and terrific is what I'll say about Be Cool. And leave it at that."

In the opening scenes of Pagan Babies, the central character, Terry Dunn, contemplates a ruthless massacre that occurred before his eyes while he said his first Mass in a small church in Rwanda. Five years have passed since the massacre of his congregation, and Dunn has done little in that time except to drink whiskey. When the opportunity arises to seek revenge on the murderers, however, Dunn shows his true colors—he is a petty criminal who fled America to avoid arrest for tax fraud—and he does some murdering of his own. This necessitates a rapid return to his hometown of Detroit, where, with the help of an ex-convict comedienne, he concocts new and more audacious scams. An Economist reviewer deemed Pagan Babies "one of Mr. Leonard's funniest books, with a typically colourful cast of oddballs." In the New York Times, Bruce DeSilva likewise commended the novel for its "fast pace, crackling dialogue and dark ironies." In the New York Times Book Review, Janet Maslin wrote: "The pieces of this crime tale begin falling into place so handily that Mr. Leonard might as well have hung a 'Virtuoso at Work' shingle on his door."

An itinerant high diver and a con man from Detroit form an unlikely bond in the 2002 thriller Tishomingo Blues, set in Mississippi. While setting up his diving rig at the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino, Dennis Lenahan witnesses a murder. Later that night, Lenahan meets slick, smooth-talking Robert Taylor, whose interest in local business affairs seems less than savory. "Before long they are in the thick of a slightly impenetrable crime caper involving drugs, prostitution, the local Dixie mafia and a band of obsessive civil war reenactors," wrote an Economist reviewer. The various factions gather for a final confrontation at a reenactment of the Battle of Brice's Cross Roads. "As usual," noted a contributor in Publishers Weekly, "Leonard's characters walk onto the page as real as sunlight and shadow; the dialogue is dead-on, the loopy story line strewn with the unexpected, including sudden flourishes of romance and death."

Returns to Motown Setting

Mr. Paradise, a 2004 work, is the first Leonard novel set in Detroit in fifteen years. While investigating the double murder of a wealthy octogenarian and a high-class call girl, homicide detective Frank Delsa falls for Kelly Barr, the call girl's friend and one of the prime suspects in the case. "Like the best crime thrillers—which means like most of Leonard's work—this novel is character-driven, and in its wonderfully rich, authentically human cast the story finds its surprises," observed a critic in Publishers Weekly. "Leonard virtually invented this genre with Stick . . .," noted Bill Ott in Booklist, "and he's been doing it effortlessly ever since."

If you enjoy the works of Elmore Leonard

If you enjoy the works of Elmore Leonard, you might want to check out the following books:

Carl Hiassen, Skinny Dip, 2004.

Robert B. Parker, Back Story, 2003.

Donald Westlake, The Road to Ruin, 2004.

Despite critical acclaim and considerable income generated by book and movie royalties, Leonard and his wife lead a relatively modest life in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham. The workmanlike Leonard continues to please readers with riveting plots and inventive dialogue. As New Yorker critic Whitney Baillett observed, "Book by book (he publishes almost one a year), the tireless and ingenious genre novelist Elmore Leonard is painting an intimate, precise, funny, frightening, and irresistible mural of the American underworld."

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 28, 1984; Volume 34, 1985; Volume 71, 1992; Volume 120, 1999.

Contemporary Novelists, 7th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2001.

Contemporary Popular Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1997.

Devlin, James E., Elmore Leonard, Twayne (Boston, MA), 1999.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 173, American Novelists since World War II, 1996; Volume 226: American Hard-Boiled Crime Writers, 2000.

Geherin, David, Elmore Leonard, Continuum (New York, NY), 1989.

Mystery and Suspense Writers: The Literature of Crime, Detection, and Espionage, Scribner (New York, NY), 1998.

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2000.

St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers, 4th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

PERIODICALS

American Film, December, 1984.

Armchair Detective, summer, 1983; winter, 1986; spring, 1986; winter, 1989.

Atlantic, June, 1998, Francis X. Rocca, review of Cuba Libre, p. 111.

Book, March-April, 2002, Rob Brookman, "Dark Genius," pp. 28-30.

Booklist, July 1, 1998, David Pitt, review of Be Cool, p. 452; June 1, 2000; December 1, 2001, Bill Ott, review of Tishomongo Blues, p. 604; November 1, 2002, Keir Graff, review of When the Women Come out to Dance: Stories, p. 452; November 15, 2003, Bill Ott, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 548; May 15, 2004, Bill Ott, review of A Coyote's in the House, p. 1621.

Boston Globe, July 30, 1992, p. 80; November 14, 1993, p. 7.

Chicago Tribune, February 4, 1981; April 8, 1983; December 8, 1983; February 7, 1985.

Chicago Tribune Book World, April 10, 1983; October 30, 1983; May 21, 1995.

Christian Science Monitor, November 4, 1983; March 12, 1997.

Commentary, May, 1985, pp. 64, 66-67.

Creative Screenwriting, summer, 1997, Laura Schiff, "Thirty Years Overnight Success: Interview with Elmore Leonard," pp. 44-49.

Detroiter, June, 1974.

Detroit News, February 23, 1982; October 23, 1983.

Economist, June 19, 1999, review of Be Cool, p. 4; October 14, 2000, "New Thrillers—Hit Men," p. 106; February 23, 2002, "All the Way Southron."

Entertainment Weekly, September 22, 2000, Bruce Fretts, "Out of Sight," p. 68.

Esquire, April, 1987, pp. 169-74; October, 2000, Daniel Mendelsohn, "Quien Es Mas Macho?," p. 100.

Film Comment, March-April, 1998, Patrick McGilligan, "Get Dutch," p. 43.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), December 14, 1985.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 1997, p. 1665; October 15, 2002, review of When the Women Come Out to Dance, p. 1497; November 1, 2003, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 1290; May 15, 2004, review of A Coyote's in the House, p. 494.

Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, September 20, 2000, Chauncey Mabe, review of Pagan Babies, p. K2148; September 27, 2000, Marta Salij, "Elmore Leonard Reaches beyond Familiar Setting," p. K3888; October 4, 2000, Marta Salij, "Elmore Leonard: A Mob Mentality," p. K7276.

Library Journal, October 15, 1991, p. 140; January, 2002, Karen Anderson, review of Tishomingo Blues, p. 153.

Listener, April 9, 1987, p. 28; October 4, 1990, pp. 30-31.

London Review of Books, September 5, 1985, p. 16.

Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1984; May 4, 1988; January 26, 1998.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, February 27, 1983; December 4, 1983; January 13, 1985; August 30, 1987, pp. 2, 8; April 23, 1989, p. 14; July 29, 1990, Charles Champlin, "Leonard Cocks a Snook at Hollywood," p. 9; August 4, 1991, Clifford Irving, review of Maximum Bob, pp. 2, 9; October 24, 1994, Dick Lochte, "When Honor and Justice Were Things to Be Cherished," p. 8; May 14, 1995, Leonard Michaels, "Good Guys Win," p. 1.

Maclean's, January 19, 1987; March 16, 1998, Brian Bethune, review of Cuba Libre, p. 63; November 13, 2000, Anthony Wilson-Smith, "Crime, Two Ways," p. 74.

Michigan Magazine (Sunday magazine of the Detroit News), October 9, 1983.

Nation, December 4, 1995, p. 724.

New Republic, November 13, 1995, p. 32; January 26, 1998.

New Statesman and Society, October 11, 1991, p. 25; November 13, 1992, John Williams, "Gumshoes in Gridlock," review of Rum Punch, p. 86.

Newsweek, March 22, 1982; July 11, 1983; November 14, 1983; April 22, 1985, pp. 62-64, 67; December 23, 2002, "Newsmakers," p. 75.

New York, May 2, 1988, p. 86.

New Yorker, September 3, 1990, Whitney Balliett, "Elmore Leonard in Hollywood," pp. 106-107; October 23, 1995, p. 96; September 30, 1996; January 12, 1998; January 26, 1998; February 11, 2002, review of Tishomingo Blues, p. 86.

New York Times, June 11, 1982; April 28, 1983; October 7, 1983; October 29, 1983; April 26, 1985; May 2, 1988; July 25, 1991, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Tough Talk, Shootouts, Auras, and A Loopy Lady," p. C18; September 23, 1993, p. C18; May 11, 1995; August 15, 1996; February 15, 1996; January 18, 1997; June 7, 1997; February 14, 1997; December 24, 1997; January 22, 1998, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Viva la Genre! Elmore Leonard Visits Old Havana"; February 11, 1999, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Get Musical: Chili Palmer's Latest Movie Idea"; September 7, 2000, Janet Maslin, "'New Elmore Leonard?' 'Yeah. You Know. Punks,'"; July 16, 2001, "Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points, and Especially Hooptedoodle," p. E1; January 28, 2002, Janet Maslin, "Leaving out the Parts Readers Skip," p. E8; December 16, 2002, Janet Maslin, "Nine Tales from the Underside, Where the Talk Is Terse," p. E7; June 18, 2004, Janet Maslin, "Crowd Pleasers," p. 25E.

New York Times Book Review, May 22, 1977; September 5, 1982; March 6, 1983; December 27, 1983; February 10, 1985, Stephen King, "What Went down When Magyk Went Up," p. 7; January 4, 1987, p. 7; July 29, 1990, Nora Ephron, "The Shylock Is the Good Guy," pp. 1, 28; July 28, 1991, Barry Gifford, "The Alligator Rings Twice," p. 8; August 16, 1992, Ann Arensberg, "Elmore Leonard for Beginners," p. 13; October 17, 1993, Teresa Carpenter, "On the Land in Rapallo," p. 39; May 14, 1995, Martin Amis, "Junk Souls," p. 7; September 8, 1996; January 22, 1998; February 8, 1998; September 20, 1998, Charles Salzberg, review of The Tonto Woman, p. 24; February 21, 1999, Kinky Friedman, "The Palmer Method," p. 10; September 17, 2000, Bruce DeSilva, "Turned Collar," p. 19; February 3, 2002, Joe Queenan, "Occupational Hazard," p. 7; December 29, 2002, Charles Taylor, "I Can Hear Their Voices," p. 6; February 1, 2004, Ann Beattie, "First, Let's Kill the Lawyer," p. 6.

New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1997.

Observer, September 22, 1991, p. 59; August 16, 1992, p. 13.

People, March 4, 1985; October 25, 1993, p. 38; January 26, 2004, Steve Dougherty, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 43.

Publishers Weekly, February 25, 1983; June 15, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of Get Shorty, p. 55; June 10, 1996, p. 84; November 16, 1998, review of Be Cool, p. 52; December 10, 2001, review of Tishomingo Blues, p. 48; January 21, 2002, "Dutch in Detroit," pp. 52-56; November 24, 2003, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 42; May 17, 2004, review of A Coyote's in the House, p. 51.

Rolling Stone, February 28, 1985.

Salon, September 9, 1996, Charles Taylor, review of Out of Sight.

Spectator, November 27, 1993, David Montrose, "Great Expectations Unfulfilled," p. 42.

Sun-Sentinel (South Florida), September 20, 2000, Chauncey Mabe, review of Pagan Babies.

Time, May 28, 1984, J. D. Reed, "A Dickens from Detroit," pp. 84, 86; February 24, 1997; August 18, 1997; January 12, 1998.

Times (London, England), April 23, 1987.

Times Literary Supplement, December 5, 1986, p. 1370; November 30, 1990, David Papineau, "When the Boiling Gets Soft," p. 1287; September 27, 1991, Savkar Altinel, review of Maximum Bob, p. 24; October 30, 1992, p. 21; November 5, 1993, Karl Miller, "Capo Conversations," p. 20.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), April 10, 1983; October 30, 1983; April 9, 1989, pp. 1, 4; May 21, 1995, section 14, p. 5.

TV Guide, August 1, 1998, Lawrence Grobel, "Get Elmore!," p. 23.

U.S. News and World Report, March 9, 1987.

Village Voice, February 23, 1982.

Voice Literary Supplement, February, 1985, p. 4.

Wall Street Journal, January 29, 1998.

Washington Post, October 6, 1980; February 6, 1985.

Washington Post Book World, February 7, 1982; July 4, 1982; February 20, 1983; November 13, 1983; December 28, 1986, p. 3; August 23, 1987, pp. 1-2; May 1, 1988; July 14, 1991, pp. 1-2; July 19, 1992, Michael Dirda, "Dreams Die Hard," p. 2.

Witness, Volume 14, number 2, Keith Taylor, "Bad Guys Are More Fun: An Interview with Elmore Leonard," pp. 126-141.

Writer, November, 1997, Lewis Burke Frumkes, "A Conversation with . . . Elmore Leonard," pp. 22-24.

Xavier Review, Volume 7, number 2, Robert E. Skinner, "To Write Realistically: An Interview with Elmore Leonard," pp. 37-46.

ONLINE

Bookreporter.com,http://www.bookreporter.com/ (September 8, 2000), "Author Profile: Elmore Leonard."

Elmore Leonard Home Page,http://www.elmoreleonard.com/ (July 6, 2004).

Page One Literary Newsletter Web Site,http://www.pageonelit.com/interviews/ (June 24, 2004), "Elmore Leonard."

Random House Online,http://www.randomhouse.com/ (July 6, 2004).

Salon.com,http://www.salon.com/ (September 28, 1999), Sean Elder, "Brilliant Careers: Elmore Leonard."

Wired for Books,http://wiredforbooks.org/swaim (June 25, 2004), "Audio Interview with Elmore Leonard."*

Leonard, Elmore 1925–

(Elmore John Leonard, Jr.)

PERSONAL: Born October 11, 1925, in New Orleans, LA; son of Elmore John (an automotive executive) and Flora Amelia (Rive) Leonard; married Beverly Cline, July 30, 1949 (divorced, May 24, 1977); married Joan Shepard, September 15, 1979 (died, January 13, 1993); married Christine Kent, August 19, 1993; children: (first marriage) Jane Jones, Peter, Christopher, William, Katherine Dudley. Education: University of Detroit, Ph. B., 1950. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Michael Siegel, Michael Siegel & Associates, 11532 Thurston Circle, Los Angeles, CA 90049.

CAREER: Writer, 1967–. Campbell-Ewald Advertising Agency, Detroit, MI, copywriter, 1950–61; freelance copywriter and author of educational and industrial films, 1961–63; head of Elmore Leonard Advertising Company, 1963–66. Producer of film Tishomingo Blues, 2002. Military service: U.S. Naval Reserve, 1943–46.

MEMBER: Writers Guild of America West, Authors League of America, Authors Guild.

AWARDS, HONORS: Hombre named one of the twenty-five best western novels of all time by Western Writers of America, 1977; Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mystery Writers of America, 1984, for LaBrava; Michigan Foundation of the Arts Award, 1985; Hammett Prize, International Association of Crime Writers, 1991, for Maximum Bob; Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, 1992; Honorary Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University, 1996, University of Detroit Mercy, 1997, and University of Michigan, 2000.

WRITINGS:

WESTERNS

The Bounty Hunters (also see below), Houghton (Boston, MA), 1953.

The Law at Randado (also see below), Houghton (Boston, MA), 1955.

Escape from Five Shadows (also see below), Houghton (Boston, MA), 1956.

Last Stand at Saber River (also see below), Dell (New York, NY), 1957, published as Lawless River, R. Hale (London, England), 1959, published as Stand on the Saber, Corgi (London, England), 1960.

Hombre (also see below), Ballantine (New York, NY), 1961.

Valdez Is Coming (also see below), Gold Medal (New York, NY), 1970.

Forty Lashes less One (also see below), Bantam (New York, NY), 1972.

Gunsights (also see below), Bantam (New York, NY), 1979.

The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1998.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #1 (contains The Bounty Hunters, Forty Lashes less One, and Gun-sights), Delta (New York, NY), 1998.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #2 (contains Escape from Five Shadows, Last Stand at Saber River, and The Law at Randado), Delta (New York, NY), 1998.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #3 (contains Val-dez Is Coming and Hombre), Delta (New York, NY), 1999.

CRIME NOVELS

The Big Bounce, Gold Medal (New York, NY), 1969, revised edition, Armchair Detective, 1989.

The Moonshine War (also see below), Doubleday (New York, NY), 1969.

Mr. Majestyk (also see below), Dell (New York, NY), 1974.

Fifty-two Pickup (also see below), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1974.

Swag (also see below), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1976, published as Ryan's Rules, Dell (New York, NY), 1976.

Unknown Man, No. 89, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1977.

The Hunted (also see below), Dell (New York, NY), 1977.

The Switch, Bantam (New York, NY), 1978.

City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1980.

Gold Coast (also see below), Bantam (New York, NY), 1980, revised edition, 1985.

Split Images (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1981.

Cat Chaser (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1982.

Stick (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.

LaBrava (also see below), Arbor House (New York, NY), 1983.

Glitz, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1985.

Bandits, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1987.

Touch, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1987.

Freaky Deaky, Morrow (New York, NY), 1988.

Killshot, Morrow (New York, NY), 1989.

Get Shorty, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1990.

Maximum Bob, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1991.

Rum Punch, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1992.

Pronto, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1993.

Riding the Rap, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1995.

Out of Sight, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1996.

Cuba Libre, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1998.

Be Cool (sequel to Get Shorty), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1999.

Pagan Babies, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2000.

Tishomingo Blues, Morrow (New York, NY), 2002.

Mr. Paradise, Morrow (New York, NY), 2004.

A Coyote's in the House, Morrow (New York, NY), 2004.

OMNIBUS VOLUMES

Elmore Leonard's Dutch Treat (contains The Hunted, Swag, and Mr. Majestyk), introduction by George F. Will, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1985.

Elmore Leonard's Double Dutch Treat (contains City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, The Moonshine War, and Gold Coast), introduction by Bob Greene, Arbor House (New York, NY), 1986.

Three Complete Novels (contains LaBrava, Cat Chaser, and Split Images), Wings Books (New York, NY), 1992.

SCREENPLAYS

The Moonshine War (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1970.

Joe Kidd, Universal, 1972.

Mr. Majestyk (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), United Artists, 1974.

High Noon, Part 2: The Return of Will Kane, Columbia Broadcasting System, 1980.

(With Joseph C. Stinson) Stick (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), Universal, 1985.

(With John Steppling) 52 Pick-Up (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), Cannon Group, 1986.

(With Fred Walton) The Rosary Murders (based on the novel by William X. Kienzle), New Line Cinema, 1987.

Desperado, National Broadcasting Corporation, 1988.

(With Joe Borrelli) Cat Chaser (based on Leonard's novel of the same title), Viacom, 1989.

(With Quentin Tarantino) Jackie Brown (based on Leonard's novel Rum Punch), Miramax, 1997.

Also author of filmscripts for Encyclopædia Britannica Films, including Settlement of the Mississippi Valley, Boy of Spain, Frontier Boy, and Julius Caesar, and of a recruiting film for the Franciscans.

OTHER

When the Women Come out to Dance (short fiction), William Morrow (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to books, including The Courage to Change: Personal Conversations about Alcoholism, edited by Dennis Wholey, Houghton (Boston, MA), 1984.

Contributor of stories and novelettes to Dime Western, Argosy, Saturday Evening Post, Zane Grey's Western Magazine, and other publications.

ADAPTATIONS: The novelette 3:10 to Yuma was filmed by Columbia Pictures, 1957; the story "The Tall T" was filmed by Columbia, 1957; Hombre was filmed by Twentieth Century-Fox, 1967; The Big Bounce was filmed by Warner Bros., 1969, and 2004; Valdez Is Coming was filmed by United Artists, 1970; Glitz was filmed for television by NBC; Get Shorty was filmed by MGM/UA, 1995; Touch was filmed by Lumiere, 1996; Out of Sight, directed by Steven Soderbergh, screenplay by Scott Frank, was filmed by Universal, 1998; Tishom-ingo Blues was adapted for film in 2002; Karen Sisco (based on characters from Out of Sight) was developed for television by ABC, 2003; screen rights to the novella Tenkiller were purchased by Paramount, 2002; Be Cool was planned for a film by MGM, 2005. Many of Leonard's novels have been adapted as audiobooks, including Mr. Paradise, Harper Audio, 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Elmore Leonard had been hailed as one of the top crime novelists of the late twentieth century, carrying on the tradition of the early pulp novelists into the next century. With dozens of bestselling crime novels to his credit, Leonard has earned acclaim for imbuing his thrillers with dark humor, moral ambivalence, and a unique prose style that reflects the anxious realities of modern life. Dubbing the novelist the "mastermind behind darkly comic bestellers" like Get Shorty, Glitz, and Out of Sight, Rob Brookman maintained in a Book critique that Leonard combines "whip-smart prose with a seemingly inexhaustible cast of sleazeballs, scam artists and out-and-out psychopaths." While noting that Leonard began his career as a noir writer, Bill Ott explained the author's evolution, writing in Booklist that "Happily-ever-aftering, unimaginable in real noir, remains a tempting if hard-won possibility in Leonard's world." Leonard's novels, according to Ott, characteristically offer readers "a violent, hard-boiled, streetwise brand of romantic comedy, usually starring a hero and heroine who … find their way out of an outlandish mess."

In the early 1980s Leonard began to receive the kind of attention from reviewers befitting an author whom Richard Herzfelder in Chicago Tribune called "a writer of thrillers whose vision goes deeper than thrill." While the plots of Leonard's books remain inherently action-packed and suspenseful, he also earns praise, to quote Washington Post Book World critic Jonathan Yardley, "for accomplishments rather more substantial than that of keeping the reader on tenterhooks." These accomplishments, which Yardley described as raising "the hard-boiled suspense novel beyond the limits of genre and into social commentary," led critics previously inclined to pigeonhole Leonard as a crime or mystery novelist to dispense with such labels in their assessments of his work. In the process, several critics have chosen to mention Leonard's name alongside those of other writers whose literary works transcend their genre, among them Ross Macdonald and Dashiell Hammett. "Leonard is one of our finest humorists, especially when he is not trying to be funny," explained Bruce DeSilva in New York Times Book Review. "We laugh because we recognize people we know and sometimes, though it can be hard to admit, something of ourselves in the flawed, very real people of his hard-boiled crime novels."

Leonard began his career in the early 1950s as a writer of western stories for magazines. His first sale was the novelette Apache Agent to Argosy magazine for $90. He eventually turned his hand to novels in the genre, publishing five of them while pursuing a career as an advertising copywriter for a firm in Detroit. Copywriter was not an occupation much to Leonard's liking. "He says matter-of-factly that he hated the work," noted Bill Dunn in a Publishers Weekly interview, "but it allowed him precious time and a steady paycheck to experiment with fiction, which he did in the early morning before going off to work." Leonard told Dunn: "Sometimes I would write a little fiction at work, too. I would write in my desk drawer and close the drawer if somebody came in."

By the early 1960s the western genre had already peaked in popularity, and Leonard found that the market for his fiction had dried up. For several years he wrote no fiction at all, devoting his time to freelance copywriting, primarily for Hurst gear shifters, a popular feature in hot rod cars. He also wrote industrial films for Detroit-area companies and educational films for Encyclopædia Britannica at a thousand dollars apiece. Finally in 1965, when his agent sold the film rights to his last western novel, Hombre, for ten thousand dollars, Leonard had the financial leeway to write fiction again. This time he focused on the mystery-suspense genre. As he told Gay Rubin of Detroiter: "I began writing westerns because there was a market for them. Now of course there is an interest in police stories … suspense, mystery, crime."

Despite the shift in genre, Leonard's fiction has remained in many ways the same. In both his western and crime fiction there is an overriding interest in seeing that justice is done, as well as the world-weary recognition that justice is a very ambiguous concept. Leonard's prose, lean and hard, has consistently been of the same high quality. And his gunfighters and urban detectives approach their work with the same glib, wisecracking attitude. Writing in Esquire, Mike Lupica claimed that despite their apparent diversity, all of Leonard's main characters are essentially the same, but "with a different name and a different job…. They have all been beat on by life, they all can drop a cool, wise-guy line on you, they are all tough, don't try to push them around."

Leonard's first crime novel, The Big Bounce, was rejected by some eighty-four publishers and film producers before being published as a paperback original by Gold Medal. Unsure about his switch to crime writing because of the trouble he had selling the book, Leonard turned again to westerns, publishing two more novels in the genre. But when the film rights to The Big Bounce were sold for $50,000, Leonard abandoned the western genre almost completely, penning only an occasional short story here and there. Since making that decision, all of his subsequent novels have enjoyed both hardcover and paperback editions and have been sold to Hollywood; in fact, The Big Bounce was reproduced by original purchaser Warner Brothers in 2004. In Film Comment, Patrick McGilligan wrote: "Now there are as many Leonard stories being filmed in Hollywood as there were options left…. On the cusp of the millennium, after nearly fifty years in the field, Leonard finds himself the modernist crime writer of choice for all the hip young filmmakers."

The typical Leonard novel, Michael Kernan explained in Washington Post, is distinguished by "guns, a killing or two or three, fights and chases and sex. Tight, clean prose, ear-perfect, whip-smart dialogue. And, just beneath the surface, an acute sense of the ridiculous." Leonard has said on several occasions that he has been less influenced by other crime writers than by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and John O'Hara. Their lean, unadorned writing style and ability to remain in the background of their stories appealed to Leonard. As he told Charles Champlin of Los Angeles Times: "I became a stylist by intentionally avoiding style. When I go back and edit and something sounds like writing, I rewrite it. I rewrite constantly, four pages in the basket for every one that survives." The result impressed Ken Tucker of Village Voice, who called Leonard "the finest thriller writer alive primarily because he does his best to efface style."

Many of Leonard's crime novels feature lower-class, somewhat desperate characters hoping to make fast money with a big heist or quick scam. They "fall into crime," according to Tucker, "because it's an easier way to make money than that tedious nine-to-five." George Stade, in New York Times Book Review, called Leonard's villains "treacherous and tricky, smart enough to outsmart themselves, driven, audacious and outrageous, capable of anything, paranoid—cunning and casually vicious—and rousing fun." Dick Roraback, in Los Angeles Times Book Review, claimed that "it is the mark of the author's craft that his characters do not seem to be created, 'written.' They simply are there, stalking, posturing, playing, loving, scheming, and we watch and listen and are fascinated. And appalled, yes, or approving, but always absorbed. They never let us off the hook."

Although he had been writing critically acclaimed crime novels for a decade, and his work was being adapted for the screen, Leonard had only a small cadre of fans until the early 1980s, when his novels began to attract the attention of a larger audience. With the novel Stick in 1982, Leonard suddenly found he had risen to the status of bestselling writer. One sign of this sudden success can be seen in the agreeable change in Leonard's finances that year. The paperback rights for Split Images earned him $7,000 in 1981; the rights for Stick, a year later, earned $50,000. Then, in 1983, LaBrava won an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America as the best novel of the year. Leonard's next novel, Glitz, hit the bestseller lists in 1985.

Leonard's popularity continued to increase throughout the 1990s. In Get Shorty he drew on his years of experience as a screenwriter to create an intricate story full of inside jokes about the seamy underbelly of Hollywood. The protagonist is Chili Palmer, a Miami loan shark who travels to California in pursuit of a man. He is also being pursued, and in the course of the action, he becomes entangled with a third-rate producer, a washed-up actress, and several cocaine dealers. Writing in Los Angeles Times Book Review, Champlin applauded the accuracy of Leonard's portrait of the movie business, calling it "less angry than Day of the Locust but not less devastating in its tour of the industry's soiled follies and the gaminess beneath the grandeurs." Even more sweeping praise came from Whitney Balliett in New Yorker, who declared that, "Book by book … the tireless and ingenious genre novelist Elmore Leonard is painting an intimate, precise, funny, frightening, and irresistible mural of the American underworld…. Leonard treats [his characters] with the understanding and the detailed attention that Jane Austen gives her Darcys and Emma Woodhouses."

The publication of Maximum Bob in 1991 spurred reviewers on to even greater superlatives. Praising Le-onard as "the greatest living writer of crime fiction," Barry Gifford announced in New York Times Book Review that with Maximum Bob "Leonard confirms … his right to a prominent place in the American noir writers' hall of fame…. Nobody I've ever read sets up pace, mood and sound better." The title character is a Florida judge whose nickname comes from his fondness for the electric chair. Having tired of his wife, who believes she is possessed by the spirit of a girl eaten by an alligator one hundred and thirty years before, the judge attempts to drive her out of his life so that he can pursue another woman. Thus begins the story, described by Robert Carver in New Statesman & Society as "a murder chase in reverse, where the killing hasn't yet happened, so you keep trying to guess both victim and perpetrator." Carver asserted that "this is a brilliant, funny, hugely enjoyable black comedy." Clifford Irving remarked in Los Angeles Times Book Review on the profound aspects of the humor found in Maximum Bob, stating that Leonard, "like any true comic, has a melancholy view of the world and its primitive denizens. Without moralizing, he is telling us—no, he is showing us—how rotten life is in the heartland of the USA. In Maximum Bob, more than ever, he is the great delineator of the macho redneck, the professional thug, the semi-mindless street-wise slob who kills and maims and rapes because it's part of the American mystique of violence and seems like fun…. Leonard's prose, in its way, is as good as anything being written in this country."

Laudatory remarks continued with the publication of Rum Punch in 1992. The novel inspired Ann Arensberg to write in New York Times Book Review: "I didn't know it was possible to be as good as Elmore Leonard…. Outpacing the classic hard-boiled novel, leaving the British detective novel in the dust, Elmore Leonard has compressed Rum Punch into almost pure drama, as close to playwriting as novel writing can get (and get away with)." Washington Post Book World contributor Michael Dirda called the book "as unput-downable as anyone could wish," as well as "a novel about growing old, about the way that time changes us, about the old dream of starting over again and its cost."

Discussing Leonard's 1993 offering, Pronto, Teresa Carpenter lamented the fact that "somewhere along the line, it became fashionable to discuss Elmore Leonard in terms formerly reserved for the likes of [French novelist Gustave] Flaubert." The critic readily admitted in New York Times Book Review that Leonard's books often "make insightful observations on contemporary culture" and "contain sharply drawn portraits of characters on the fringe of society." Other reviewers also continued to find much more than simple fun in Leonard's books. "Leonard is a literary genius," Martin Amis stated simply in his New York Times Book Review assessment of Riding the Rap, adding that the novelist "possesses gifts—of ear and eye, of timing and phrasing—that even the most indolent and snobbish masters of the mainstream must vigorously covet."

Out of Sight further cemented Leonard's reputation. The novel captures the "street, the savor and savvy, slyness and swagger of the talk that's talked on street corners and in bars, at taped-off crime scenes and in prison yards," wrote Annie Gottlieb in Nation. In Out of Sight, twenty-nine-year-old U.S. Marshall Karen Sisco—clothed in a $3,500 Chanel suit—runs into escaping convict Jack Foley. Jack reminds Karen of Harry Dean Stanton in the movie Repo Man: as she explains both men appear to be "real guys who seemed tired of who they were, but couldn't do anything about it." As Karen and Jack get together, cop and criminal, romance ensues in a quirky, convoluted plot that involves Foley's hit on the house of an ex-junk bond trader who supposedly has millions hidden inside. Writing for New York Times Book Review, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt called Out of Sight "an absorbing story full of offbeat characters, funny incidents, vivid locales, [and] dialogue that jumps off the page."

In Cuba Libre Leonard reaches for a broader audience than those he attracted with his crime novels and westerns, by combining elements of both genres. Set in Cuba around the time of the Spanish-American War, Cuba Libre combines adventure, history, and romance with the requisite nefarious goings-on. In a move worthy of one of his novels, Leonard arranged to have Cuba Libre published on the one hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine. In Cuba Libre, Ben Tyler is a cowboy of the bank-robbing kind; in his vigilantism, he only robs banks that contain the money of people who owe him money. When he grows tired of robbing banks, Tyler joins his friend Charlie Burke in a scheme to export horses to Cuba. They arrive in Havana just as the Spanish-American War breaks out, and suddenly these petty thieves are embroiled in the larger conflict. A Kirkus Reviews critic noted that the "three-cornered conflict"—the heroes and the sugar baron whose price they must meet, the U.S. government and Spain, and the American capitalists's interests in Cuba—"is nothing more than a classic Leonard scam writ large," with the small scam dovetailing smoothly into the larger "scams" of the political powers. Lehmann-Haupt, in New York Times, found the novel "unusually rich in period atmosphere," primarily because Leonard is "as always, so uncannily at home with the slang and terminology of the times." Also writing in New York Times Book Review, Pico Iyer criticized the lack of character development in the novel: "With so much plot … there is almost no room for character or emotion." Lehmann-Haupt stressed, however, that the novel is a political satire, though "Leonard is too good a story teller to let … political views shape his characters."

Be Cool is a sequel to Get Shorty and once again features dubious Hollywood mogul Chili Palmer. Always in search for film plots, Chili decides to help a struggling young singer make it in the music industry, just to see whether or not her story would make a good movie. In short order, Chili discovers that he has run afoul of the girl's previous manager, the Russian mafia, and a gang of rap artists. To quote Anthony Wilson-Smith in Maclean's, "The world that Leonard sketches has remained unchanged—a place where moral ambiguity abounds, and sudden, shocking violence is never more than a flick of the page away. Be Cool, like Get Shorty, skewers the pretensions of the entertainment industry." A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that Chili "remains a compulsively appealing character,… retaining his immaculate cool in lethal situations," while in Booklist David Pitt suggested that the novel "reaches a level of comic surrealism that its predecessor only approached." And Lehmann-Haupt, in his New York Times review, commended Be Cool as "thoroughly entertaining," adding that while the "plot wrinkles involve a very inside knowledge of the music industry," "Leonard seems to have mastered it."

In the opening scenes of Pagan Babies, the central character, Terry Dunn, contemplates a ruthless massacre that occurred before his eyes while he said his first Mass in a small church in Rwanda. Five years have passed since the massacre of his congregation, and Dunn has done little in that time except drink whiskey. When the opportunity arises to seek revenge on the murderers, however, Dunn shows his true colors: he is a petty criminal who fled America to avoid arrest for tax fraud, and he has no problem doing some murdering of his own. This tact necessitates Dunn's rapid return to his hometown of Detroit, where, with the help of an ex-convict comedienne, he concocts new and more audacious scams. An Economist reviewer deemed Pagan Babies "one of Mr. Leonard's funniest books, with a typically colourful cast of oddballs." De Silva likewise commended the novel for its "fast pace, crackling dialogue and dark ironies." In New York Times Book Review, Janet Maslin wrote: "The pieces of this crime tale begin falling into place so handily that Mr. Leonard might as well have hung a 'Virtuoso at Work' shingle on his door."

Noting that Leonard "is the only A-list crime fiction writer who doesn't rely on a series hero," Booklist critic Bill Ott nonetheless praised the author for providing another in a long line of fascinating if slightly hardened protagonists in Tishomingo Blues. The novel finds high-diver Dennis Lenahan working at a Mississippi resort when he spots a murder from atop his eighty-foot ladder. Immediately conspicuous to the murderer, Dennis wants to mind his own business, but he soon finds himself caught up in a sea of events that involve not only the murderer and his status as witness: Civil War re-enactors, an aggressive newscaster, and the murderer's seductive and all-too-willing wife. "As usual, Leonard's characters walk onto the page as real as sunlight and shadow," praised a Publishers Weekly reviewer, adding that in Tishomingo Blues "the dialogue is dead-on, the loopy story line strewn with the unexpected." Calling the novel "as full of pitch-perfect patter, bare-knuckle verbal sparring and whiplash one-liners as anything he has written," an Economist contributor noted that "the real pleasure of Tishomingo Blues is its diverse voices"; in New Yorker a contributor begged to differ, writing that Leonard's "hurtling plot twists keep coming, right up to the perfect rip of a finish."

In an online interview for the Mr. Showbiz Web site, Leonard said that his literary tastes and aspirations were laid down in childhood when he read the Book-of-the-Month Club offerings his mother bought. "I read a lot of them," he said. "I was intimidated by most of the novels because I thought that they were just too big and heavy, and had too many words in them. I still feel that way about most novels—that they have way too many words in them." The author who has said that he always tries "to leave out the boring parts" in his work is a disciplined practitioner of his craft. He writes every day of the week, longhand, sitting at a desk in the corner of his living room. "The satisfaction is in doing it," he told the Mr. Showbiz interviewer. "I'm not writing for notoriety; I'm writing to satisfy myself."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 28, 1984, Volume 34, 1985, Volume 71, 1992.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 173, American Novelists since World War II, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Geherin, David, Elmore Leonard, Continuum (New York, NY), 1989.

PERIODICALS

American Film, December, 1984.

Armchair Detective, winter, 1986; spring, 1986; winter, 1989.

Atlantic, June, 1998, Francis X. Rocca, review of Cuba Libre, p. 111.

Book, March-April, 2002, Rob Brookman, interview with Leonard, p. 28.

Booklist, November 1, 1998, David Pitt, review of Be Cool, p. 452; December 1, 2001, Bill Ott, review of Tishomingo Blues, p. 604; November 1, 2002, Keir Graff, review of When the Women Come out to Dance, p. 452; November 15, 2003, Bill Ott, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 548.

Boston Globe, July 30, 1992, p. 80; November 14, 1993, p. 7.

Chicago Tribune, February 4, 1981; April 8, 1983; December 8, 1983; February 7, 1985.

Christian Science Monitor, November 4, 1983; March 12, 1997.

Commentary, May, 1985, pp. 64, 66-67.

Detroiter, June, 1974, Gay Rubin, interview with Leonard.

Detroit News, February 23, 1982; October 23, 1983.

Economist (US), June 19, 1999, review of Be Cool, p. 4; October 14, 2000, "New Thrillers-Hit Men," p. 106; February 23, 2002, reveiw of Tishomingo Blues.

Entertainment Weekly, September 22, 2000, Bruce Fretts, review of Pagan Babies, p. 68; January 9, 2004, Rebecca Ascher-Walsh, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 84.

Esquire, April, 1987, pp. 169-74.

Film Comment, March-April, 1998, Patrick McGilligan, "Get Dutch," p. 43.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), December 14, 1985.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 1997, p. 1665; November 15, 2001, review of Tishomingo Blues, p. 1571; October 15, 2002, review of When the Women Come out to Dance, p. 1497; November 1, 2003, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 1290.

Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, September 20, 2000, Chauncey Mabe, review of Pagan Babies, p. K2148; September 27, 2000, Marta Salij, "Elmore Leonard Reaches beyond Familiar Setting," p. K3888; October 4, 2000, Marta Salij, "Elmore Leonard: A Mob Mentality," p. K7276.

Library Journal, January, 2002, Karen Anderson, review of Tishomingo Blues, p. 153.

Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1984; May 4, 1988; January 26, 1998.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, February 27, 1983; December 4, 1983; January 13, 1985; August 30, 1987, pp. 2, 8; April 23, 1989, p. 14; July 29, 1990, p. 9; August 4, 1991, pp. 2, 9; October 24, 1994, p. 8; May 14, 1995, p. 1.

Maclean's, January 19, 1987; March 16, 1998, Brian Bethune, review of Cuba Libre, p. 63; March 29, 1999, Anthony Wilson-Smith, "The Master of Crime: Elmore Leonard's 35th Novel Shows Him at the Top of His Form," p. 70.

Nation, December 4, 1995, Annie Gottlieb, review of Out of Sight, p. 724.

New Republic, November 13, 1995, p. 32; January 26, 1998.

New Statesman & Society, October 11, 1991; November 13, 1992.

Newsweek, March 22, 1982; July 11, 1983; November 14, 1983; April 22, 1985, pp. 62-64, 67.

New Yorker, September 3, 1990, pp. 106-7; October 23, 1995, p. 96; September 30, 1996; January 12, 1998; January 26, 1998; February 11, 2002, review of Tishomingo Blues, p. 86.

New York Times, June 11, 1982; April 28, 1983; October 7, 1983; October 29, 1983; April 26, 1985; May 2, 1988; July 25, 1991, p. C18; September 23, 1993, p. C18; May 11, 1995; August 15, 1996; February 15, 1996; January 18, 1997; June 7, 1997; February 14, 1997; December 24, 1997; January 22, 1998, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Viva la Genre! Elmore Leonard Visits Old Havana;" February 11, 1999, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "Get Musical: Chili Palmer's Latest Movie Idea;" September 7, 2000, Janet Maslin, "'New Elmore Leonard?' 'Yeah. You Know. Punks.'"

New York Times Book Review, May 22, 1977; September 5, 1982; March 6, 1983; December 27, 1983; February 10, 1985, p. 7; January 4, 1987, p. 7; July 29, 1990, pp. 1, 28; July 28, 1991, p. 8; August 16, 1992, p. 13; October 17, 1993, p. 39; May 14, 1995, p. 7; September 8, 1996; January 22, 1998; February 8, 1998; September 20, 1998, Charles Salzberg, review of The Tonto Woman, p. 24; February 21, 1999, Kinky Friedman, "The Palmer Method," p. 10; September 17, 2000, Bruce DeSilva, "Turned Collar."

New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1997.

People, January 26, 2004, Steve Dougherty, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 43.

Publishers Weekly, February 25, 1983; June 15, 1990, p. 55; June 10, 1996, p. 84; November 16, 1998, review of Be Cool, p. 52; December 10, 2001, review of Tishomingo Blues, p. 48; January 21, 2002, interview with Leonard, p. 52; February 3, 2003, review of Tishomingo Blues (audio version), p. 24; November 24, 2003, review of Mr. Paradise, p. 42; April 5, 2004, review of Mr. Paradise (audio version), p. 22.

Sun-Sentinel (South Florida), September 20, 2000, Chauncey Mabe, review of Pagan Babies.

Time, May 28, 1984, pp. 84, 86; February 24, 1997; August 18, 1997; January 12, 1998.

Times Literary Supplement, December 5, 1986, p. 1370; November 30, 1990, p. 1287; September 27, 1991, p. 24; October 30, 1992, p. 21; November 5, 1993, p. 20.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), April 10, 1983; October 30, 1983; April 9, 1989, pp. 1, 4; May 21, 1995, p. 5.

TV Guide, August 1, 1998, Lawrence Grobel, "Get Elmore!," p. 23.

Village Voice, February 23, 1982, Ken Tucker.

Wall Street Journal, January 29, 1998.

Washington Post, October 6, 1980; February 6, 1985.

Washington Post Book World, February 7, 1982; July 4, 1982; February 20, 1983; November 13, 1983; December 28, 1986, p. 3; August 23, 1987, pp. 1-2; May 1, 1988; July 14, 1991, pp. 1-2; July 19, 1992, p. 2.

ONLINE

Elmore Leonard Home Page, http://www.elmoreleonard.com/ (April 25, 2004).

Mr. Showbiz, http://mrshowbiz.go.com/ (October 19, 2000), Rick Schultz, interview with Leonard.

Random House Web site, http://www.randomhouse.com/ (October 19, 2000), biographical information and reviews.

Salon.com, http://www.salon.com/people/ (September 28, 1999), Sean Elder, interview with Leonard.

LEONARD, Elmore

Nationality: American. Born: New Orleans, Louisiana, 11 October 1925. Education: The University of Detroit, 1946-50, Ph.B. in English 1950. Military Service: Served in the United States Naval Reserve, 1943-46. Family: Married 1) Beverly Cline in 1949 (divorced 1977); 2) Joan Shepard in 1979 (died 1993), two daughters and three sons; 3) Christine Kent in 1993. Career: Copywriter, Campbell Ewald advertising agency, Detroit, 1950-61; writer of industrial and educational films, 1961-63; director, Elmore Leonard Advertising Company, 1963-66. Since 1967 full-time writer. Awards: Western Writers of America award, 1977; Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe award, 1984; Michigan Foundation for the Arts award, 1985; Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, 1992. Agent: Michael Siegel and Associates, 502 Tenth St., Santa Monica, California 90402, U.S.A.

Publications

Novels

The Bounty Hunters. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1953; London, Hale, 1956.

The Law at Randado. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1955; London, Hale, 1957.

Escape from Five Shadows. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1956; London, Hale, 1957.

Last Stand at Saber River. New York, Dell, 1959; as Lawless River, London, Hale, 1959; as Stand on the Saber, London, Corgi, 1960.

Hombre. New York, Ballantine, and London, Hale, 1961.

Valdez Is Coming. London, Hale, 1969; New York, Fawcett, 1970.

The Big Bounce. New York, Fawcett, and London, Hale, 1969.

The Moonshine War. New York, Doubleday, 1969; London, Hale, 1970.

Forty Lashes Less One. New York, Bantam, 1972.

Mr. Majestyk (novelization of screenplay). New York, Dell, 1974; London, Penguin, 1986.

Fifty-Two Pickup. New York, Delacorte Press, and London, Secker and Warburg, 1974.

Swag. New York, Delacorte Press, 1976; London, Penguin, 1986; as Ryan's Rules, New York, Dell, 1976.

The Hunted. New York, Delacorte Press, 1977; London, Secker and Warburg, 1978.

Unknown Man No. 89. New York, Delacorte Press, and London, Secker and Warburg, 1977.

The Switch. New York, Bantam, 1978; London, Secker and Warburg, 1979.

Gunsights. New York, Bantam, 1979.

City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. New York, Arbor House, 1980; London, W.H. Allen, 1981.

Gold Coast. New York, Bantam, 1980; London, W.H. Allen, 1982. Split Images. New York, Arbor House, 1982; London, W.H. Allen, 1983.

Cat Chaser. New York, Arbor House, 1982; London, Viking, 1986.

Stick. New York, Arbor House, 1983; London, Allen Lane, 1984.

LaBrava. New York, Arbor House, 1983; London, Viking Press, 1984.

Glitz. New York, Arbor House, and London, Viking, 1985.

Bandits. New York, Arbor House, and London, Viking, 1987.

Touch. New York, Arbor House, 1987; London, Viking, 1988.

Freaky Deaky. New York, Arbor House, and London, Viking, 1988.

Killshot. New York, Arbor House, and London, Viking, 1989.

Get Shorty. New York, Delacorte Press, and London, Viking, 1990.

Maximum Bob. New York, Delacorte Press, and London, Viking, 1991.

Rum Punch. New York, Delacorte Press, and London, Viking, 1992.

Pronto. New York, Delacorte Press, and London, Viking, 1993.

Riding the Rap. New York, Delacorte Press, and London, Viking, 1995.

Out of Sight. New York, Delacorte Press, 1996.

Cuba Libre. New York, Delacorte Press, 1998.

Be Cool. New York, Delacorte Press, 1999.

Pagan Babies. New York, Delacorte Press, 2000.

Uncollected Short Stories

"Trail of the Apache," in Argosy (New York), December 1951.

"Red Hell Hits Canyon Diablo," in Ten Story Western, 1952.

"Apache Medicine," in Dime Western, May 1952.

"You Never See Apaches," in Dime Western, September 1952.

"Cavalry Boots," in Zane Grey's Western (New York), December 1952.

"Long Night," in Zane Grey's Western 18 (London).

"The Rustlers," in Zane Grey's Western 29 (London), 1953.

"Under the Friar's Ledge," in Dime Western, January 1953.

"The Last Shot," in Fifteen Western Tales, September 1953.

"Trouble at Rindo's Station," in Argosy (New York), October 1953.

"Blood Money" in Western Story (London), February 1954.

"Saint with a Six-Gun," in Frontier, edited by Luke Short. New York, Bantam, 1955.

"3:10 to Yuma," in The Killers, edited by Peter Dawson. New York, Bantam, 1955.

"The Hard Way," in Branded West, edited by Don Ward. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1956.

"No Man's Gun," in Western Story (London), May 1956.

"Moment of Vengeance," in Colt's Law, edited by Luke Short. New York, Bantam, 1957.

"The Tall T," in The Tall T and Other Western Adventures. New York, Avon, 1957.

"The Rancher's Lady," in Wild Streets, edited by Don Ward. New York, Doubleday, 1958.

"Only Good Ones," in Western Roundup, edited by Nelson Nye. New York, Macmillan, 1961.

"The Boy Who Smiled," in The Arbor House Treasury of Great Western Stories, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg. New York, Arbor House, 1982.

"The Nagual," in The Cowboys, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg. New York, Fawcett, 1985.

"The Captive," in The Second Reel West, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg. New York, Doubleday, 1985.

"Law of the Hunted Ones," in Wild Westerns, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg. New York, Walker, 1986.

"The Colonel's Lady," in The Horse Soldiers, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg. New York, Fawcett, 1987.

"Jugged" in The Gunfighters, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg. New York, Fawcett, 1987.

"The Big Hunt," in More Wild Westerns, edited by Bill Pronzini. New York, Walker, 1989.

Plays

Screenplays:

The Moonshine War, 1970; Joe Kidd, 1972; Mr. Majestyk (with Joseph Stinson), 1974; Stick (with John Steppling), 1985.

Television Plays:

High Noon, Part II: The Return of Will Kane, 1980.

Film Adaptations:

Get Shorty, 1995; Jackie Brown, 1997; Last Stand at Saber River, 1997; Out of Sight, 1998.

Manuscript Collections:

University of Detroit Library.

Critical Studies:

Elmore Leonard by David Geherin, New York, Ungar-Continuum, 1989; Elmore Leonard by James E. Devlin, New York, Twayne Publishers, 1999.

Elmore Leonard is one of those rare authors who began as a pulp writer and ended top of the bestseller lists. More impressive, however, is his feat of moving from being considered a mere genre novelist to being credited with elevating the crime novel to new levels of artistic achievement.

Leonard began as a writer of Westerns, turning out stories for the pulps that still flourished in the 1950s. One of his early novels, Hombre, the story of a white man raised by Indians whose bravery saves the lives of his fellow stagecoach passengers, was selected by the Western Writers of America as one of the twenty-five best Westerns of all time.

With The Big Bounce in 1969, Leonard switched to writing about the contemporary scene. Set in the author's home state of Michigan, the novel describes the dangerous encounter between Jack Ryan, an ex-convict, and Nancy Hayes, a restless 19-year-old with a thirst for thrills. The Big Bounce highlights the two kinds of characters that would become trademarks of Leonard's fiction: those who run afoul of the law, and those who become involved with those who do.

In 1972, after reading George V. Higgins's The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a comic novel about the activities of a small-time Boston hoodlum narrated through colorful dialogue and extended monologues, Leonard began to experiment with new ways of telling his stories. He found that by relying more on dialogue he could effectively shift the burden of storytelling to his characters. The result was Fifty-Two Pickup, his first major success as a crime novelist.

Fifty-Two Pickup is the story of a Michigan businessman named Harry Mitchell who is being framed by a trio of low-life characters for the murder of his mistress. Like many of Leonard's protagonists, Mitchell is an easygoing guy until pushed. Then he takes control of the situation and single-handedly extricates himself from his predicament.

In 1978, Leonard was commissioned by a local newspaper to write a non-fiction profile of the Detroit police. Though he planned to spend only a few days hanging around police headquarters, he ended up staying for two and a half months, soaking up atmosphere, listening to the cops and criminals, lawyers and witnesses who passed through the squad room. This rich assortment of colorful characters provided a new source for the distinctive sounds and speech rhythms that would heighten the realism of his fiction.

The first novel that resulted from this experience was City Primeval, also his first book to feature a policeman as protagonist. Raymond Cruz, a Detroit Police Homicide Lieutenant, crosses paths with Clement Mansell, a killer known (with ample reason) as the "Oklahoma Wildman." Their final showdown reads like the climax to one of Leonard's early Westerns. (Appropriately, the novel is subtitled High Noon in Detroit. ) Besides exciting action, the novel also owes its success to its authentic characters and unflinching realism.

Convinced of the benefits of research on his fiction, Leonard now began employing a part-time researcher to assist him in his efforts. No amount of background research can guarantee a novel's success. However, combined with Leonard's gift for creating fresh and believable characters and dialogue that unerringly rings true, research provides a factual grounding that enhances an already solid core of believability. Such a combination resulted in some of the most notable crime novels in recent American fiction.

Glitz is a good example. Vincent Mora is an off-duty Miami policeman who is recuperating from a bullet wound in sunny Puerto Rico. There he meets and takes a liking to a young woman named Iris Ruiz. When she plunges to her death from a hotel room in Atlantic City, where she has gone to work as a hostess, Mora heads north to investigate. Soon he is engaged in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with Teddy Magyk, a sociopathic ex-convict who seeks revenge on Mora for having sent him to prison.

Thanks to Leonard's extensive research, the reader enjoys an insider's peek behind the scenes at the Atlantic City casinos and gets to meet the distinctive inhabitants of that world. Vincent Mora and Teddy Magyk give life to Glitz, while the setting and colorful supporting cast flesh it out in vivid detail.

Leonard employs a similar recipe with equal success in novels like Stick, LaBrava, Bandits, Freaky Deaky, Get Shorty, Rum Punch, and Be Cool. However, he is careful never to repeat a stale formula. The settings vary from Miami Beach to New Orleans to Hollywood and back to Detroit, and each novel introduces a fresh cast of memorable characters and plots filled with unpredictable twists.

Though his novels are about serious—often deadly—matters, they also reveal Leonard's gift for comedy, especially comic dialogue. Leonard has a talent for mimicking voices that capture the distinctive personality of the speaker. Once these characters open their mouths, they open their minds, and the result is fiction filled with amusingly offbeat points of view.

In several of his recent novels, Leonard has introduced a fresh new element—smart, independent women—to his usual colorful mix of offbeat characters. Rum Punch, for example, centers around Jackie Burke (re-named Jackie Brown in the Quentin Tarentino film version of the novel), a forty-four-year old flight attendant who is arrested when the police find cocaine someone has hidden in the money she has been hired to transport from the Bahamas to the U.S. on her flights. Taking matters into her own hands, she concocts an elaborate shell game that outfoxes both the feds and the killer whose money she was carrying. Out of Sight features Karen Sisco, a deputy U.S. marshal who deftly manages to balance her attraction to an escaped convict into whose path she stumbles with her sworn duties as a law enforcement officer.

Leonard is sometimes mistakenly categorized as a mystery writer. Though suspenseful, his novels contain little mystery. Instead, they are novels about character and, because many of those characters are either criminals or policemen, novels about crime. The best of them are rich in texture, authentic in detail, and colorful in the richness and variety of character and voice. Over the past three decades, Leonard has produced an impressive body of fiction that sets the standard for what the crime novel in the hands of a talented artist is capable of achieving.

—David Geherin

LEONARD, Elmore 1925–

PERSONAL

Full name, Elmore John Leonard, Jr.; born October 11 (some sources cite October 29), 1925, in New Orleans, LA; raised in Detroit, MI; son of Elmore John (in sales) and Flora Amelia (maiden name, Rive) Leonard; married Beverly Claire Cline, July (some sources cite August) 30, 1949 (divorced, May 24, 1977); married Joan Shephard (some sources cite the name Joan Leanne Lancaster), September 15, 1979 (died, January 13, 1993); married Christine Kent, August 19, 1993; children: (first marriage) Jane Elmore Jones, Peter, Christopher, William, Katherine Elmore Dudley. Education: University of Detroit, Ph.B., 1950. Avocational Interests: Gardening, watching television.

Addresses:

Agent—Andrew Wiley, Andrew Wiley Agency, 250 West 57th St., Suite 2114, New York, NY 10107. Manager—Michael Siegel and Associates, 8830 West Third St., Los Angeles, CA 90048 (some sources cite 11532 Thurston Circle, Los Angeles, CA 90049).

Career:

Writer and producer. Campbell–Ewald Advertising, Detroit, MI, copywriter, 1950–61; freelance copywriter and author of educational and industrial films, 1961–63; Elmore Leonard Advertising Company, principal, 1963–66. Appeared in advertisements for American Express, 1980s. Nickname is Dutch. Military service: U.S. Naval Reserve, 1943–46.

Member:

Writers Guild of America, Authors League of America, Authors Guild, Mystery Writers of America, Western Writers of America.

Awards, Honors:

Hombre was named one of the twenty–five best western novels of all time, Western Writers of America, 1977; Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination, Mystery Writers of America, best original paperback novel, 1978, for The Switch; Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination, best novel, 1981, for Split Images; Edgar Allan Poe Award, best novel, 1983, for LaBrava; award from Michigan Foundation for the Arts, 1985; special mention, Cognac Festival du Film Policier, 1988, for The Rosary Murders; Literary Lions Award, New York Public Library, 1989; North American Hammett Prize, International Association of Crime Writers, book of the year, 1991, for Maximum Bob; Grand Master Award, Mystery Writers of America, 1992, for "individuals who, by a lifetime of achievement, have proved themselves preeminent in the craft of the mystery and dedicated to the advancement of the genre"; Bronze Wrangler Award (with others), Western Heritage awards, outstanding television feature film, 1998, for Last Stand at Saber River; Edgar Allan Poe Award (with Scott Frank), best motion picture, 1999, for Out of Sight; honorary doctorates from various institutions, including Florida Atlantic University, 1996, University of Detroit Mercy, 1997, and University of Michigan, 2000.

CREDITS

Film Executive Producer:

Jackie Brown, Miramax, 1997.

Be Cool, Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer, 2005.

Tishomingo Blues, Warner Bros., 2005.

Film Consultant:

The Big Bounce, Warner Bros., 2004.

Television Executive Consultant; Series:

Maximum Bob, ABC, 1998.

(And production consultant) Karen Sisco, ABC, 2003, USA Network, 2003–2004.

Television Creator; Movies:

Desperado: Badlands Justice, NBC, 1989.

Desperado: The Outlaw Wars, 1989.

Television Appearances; Specials:

Himself, AFI's "100 Years … 100 Heroes & Villains" (also known as AFI's "100 Years, 100 Heroes & Villains: America's Greatest Screen Characters"), CBS, 2003.

Television Appearances; Episodic:

Byline Showtime, Showtime, 1992.

American Cinema, PBS, 1995.

RECORDINGS

Audiobooks:

Be Cool, Recorded Books, 1999.

The Kid and the Big Hunt, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2000.

The Elmore Leonard Collection, BDD Audio, 2001.

When the Women Come Out to Dance, Harper Audio, 2002.

Tishomingo Blues, Harper Audio, 2003.

Mr. Paradise, Harper Audio, 2004.

Other Leonard works have been released as audio recordings.

Videos:

Inside "Out of Sight," Universal Studios Home Video, 1998.

Jackie Brown: How It Went Down, Miramax Home Entertainment, 2002.

WRITINGS

Screenplays:

The Moonshine War (based on the novel by Leonard), Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer, 1970.

Joe Kidd, Universal, 1972.

Mr. Majestyk, United Artists, 1974.

(With Joseph C. Stinson) Stick (based on Leonard's novel), Universal, 1985.

(With John Steppling) Fifty–Two Pick–Up (based on Leonard's novel), Cannon, 1986.

(With Fred Walton) The Rosary Murders (based on the novel by William X. Kienzle), New Line Cinema, 1987.

Also wrote film scripts for Encyclopedia Britannica Films, including Boy of Spain, Frontier Boy, Julius Caesar, and Settlement of the Mississippi Valley; author of the script for a recruiting film for the Roman Catholic Franciscan order.

Teleplays; Movies:

High Noon, Part Two: The Return of Will Kane (also known as High Noon, Part II and The Return of Will Kane), CBS, 1980.

Desperado, NBC, 1987.

Teleplays; Episodic:

Byline Showtime, Showtime, 1992.

Western Novels:

The Bounty Hunters, Houghton Mifflin, 1953.

The Law at Randado, Houghton Mifflin, 1954.

Escape from Five Shadows, Houghton Mifflin, 1956.

Last Stand at Saber River (also known as The Sound of Gunfire), Dell, 1957, published as Lawless River, R. Hale, 1959, and as Stand on the Saber, Corgi, 1960.

Hombre, Ballantine Books, 1961.

Valdez Is Coming, Gold Medal, 1970.

Forty Lashes Less One, Bantam Books, 1972.

Gunsights, Bantam Books, 1979.

Crime Novels:

The Moonshine War, Doubleday, 1969.

The Big Bounce (also known as Mother, This Is Jack Ryan), Gold Medal, 1969, revised edition, Armchair Detective, 1989.

Fifty–Two Pick–Up, Delacorte Press, 1974.

Mr. Majestyk (based on his screenplay), Dell, 1974.

Swag, Delacorte Press, 1976, published as Ryan's Rules, Dell, 1976.

The Hunted, Dell, 1977.

Unknown Man, No. 89, Delacorte Press, 1977.

The Switch, Bantam Books, 1978.

City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, Arbor House, 1980.

Gold Coast, Bantam Books, 1980, revised edition, 1985.

Split Images, Arbor House, 1981.

Cat Chaser, Avon, 1982.

LaBrava, Arbor House, 1983.

Stick, Arbor House, 1983.

Glitz, Arbor House, 1985.

Bandits, Arbor House, 1987.

Touch, Arbor House, 1987.

Freaky Deaky, William Morrow, 1988.

Killshot, William Morrow, 1989.

Get Shorty, Delacorte Press, 1990.

Maximum Bob, Delacorte Press, 1991.

Rum Punch, Delacorte Press, 1992.

Pronto, Delacorte Press, 1993.

Riding the Rap, Delacorte Press, 1995.

Out of Sight, Delacorte Press, 1996.

Cuba Libre, Delacorte Press, 1998.

Be Cool, Delacorte Press, 1999.

Pagan Babies, Delacorte Press, 2000.

Mr. Paradise, William Morrow, 2002.

Tishomingo Blues, William Morrow, 2002.

Short Story Collections:

The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories, Delacorte Press, 1998.

When the Women Come Out to Dance, William Morrow, 2002.

Omnibus Volumes:

Elmore Leonard's Dutch Treat: Three Novels (contains The Hunted, Mr. Majestyk, and Swag), introduction by George F. Will, Arbor House, 1985.

Elmore Leonard's Double Dutch Treat: Three Novels (contains City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, Gold Coast, and The Moonshine War), introduction by Bob Greene, Arbor House, 1986.

Elmore Leonard: Three Complete Novels (contains Cat Chaser, LaBrava, and Split Images), Wings Books, 1992.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #1 (contains The Bounty Hunters, Forty Lashes Less One, and Gun-sights), Delta, 1998.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #2 (contains Escape from Five Shadows, Last Stand at Saber River, and The Law at Randado), Delta, 1998.

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #3 (contains Hombre and Valdez Is Coming), Delta, 1999.

Other:

Notebooks, Lord John, 1990.

Fire in the Hole (novella; e–book), Contentville Press, 2001.

A Coyote's in the House! (juvenile), William Morrow, 2004.

Contributor to books, including The Courage to Change: Personal Conversations about Alcoholism, edited by Dennis Wholey, Houghton Mifflin, 1984; and Naked Came the Manatee: A Novel, edited by Carl Hiaasen, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1996. Novelettes includeThe Captives and 3:10 to Yuma. Contributor of short stories and novelettes to periodicals, including Argosy, Dime Western, Saturday Evening Post, and Zane Grey's Western.

ADAPTATIONS

Several feature films have been based on Leonard's writings. 3:10 to Yuma, adapted by Halsted Welles and released by Columbia in 1957, was based on Leonard's novelette of the same title. The Tall T, adapted by Burt Kennedy and released by Columbia in 1957, was based on Leonard's novelette The Captives. The films Hombre, adapted by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank and released by Twentieth Century–Fox in 1967, The Big Bounce, adapted by Robert Dozier and released by Warner Bros. in 1969, and Valdez Is Coming, adapted by Roland Kibbee and David Rayfiel and released by United Artists in 1971, were all based on Leonard's novels. The Ambassador (also known as The Peace-maker), adapted by Max Jack and released by Cannon in 1984, was based on Leonard's novel Fifty–Two Pick–Up. Cat Chaser, adapted by Alan Sharp and James Borrelli in 1989 and released by LIVE Home Video in 1991, was based on Leonard's novel of the same title. The film Border Shootout, released by Turner Home Entertainment in 1990, was based on Leonard's western novel The Law at Randado. The films Get Shorty, adapted by Scott Frank and released by Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer/United Artists in 1995, and Touch, adapted by Paul Schrader and released by Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer/United Artists in 1997, were also based on Leonard's novels. Jackie Brown, adapted by Quentin Tarantino and released by Miramax in 1997, was based on Leonard's novel Rum Punch. Out of Sight, adapted by Scott Frank and released by Universal in 1998, The Big Bounce, released by Warner Bros. in 2004, Be Cool, released by Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer in 2005, Tishomingo Blues, released by Warner Bros. in 2005, and Killshot, released by Miramax, were also based on Leonard's novels. Television movies based on Leonard's writings include Glitz, broadcast by NBC in 1988; and Split Images, broadcast in 1992; Pronto, broadcast by Showtime in 1996; Last Stand at Saber River, adapted by Ronald Cohen and broadcast by TNT in 1997; and Gold Coast (also known as Elmore Leonard's "Gold Coast"), broadcast by Showtime in 1997. The television series Maximum Bob, broadcast by ABC in 1998, was based on Leonard's novel of the same title. The television series Karen Sisco, broadcast by ABC in 2003 and USA Network in 2003 and 2004, was also based on Leonard's work.

OTHER SOURCES

Books:

Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volume 59, Thomson Gale, 2005.

Bestsellers '89, Issue 1, Gale, 1989, p. 42.

Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Volume 28, Gale, 1990, p. 282.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale, Volume 28, 1984, p. 233; Volume 34, 1985, p. 212.

Devlin, James E., Elmore Leonard, Twayne Publishers, 1999.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 173: American Novelists since World War II, Gale, 1996.

Geherin, David, Elmore Leonard, Continuum, 1989.

Periodicals:

Book, March/April, 2002, p. 28.

Creative Screenwriting, Volume 4, issue 2, 1997, pp. 44–61.

Detroiter, June, 1974.

Film Comment, March/April, 1998, p. 43.

Gallery, February, 2001, pp. 90–91; June, 2002, pp.88–89, 136–37.

Maclean's, March 29, 1999, p. 70.

Movieline, July, 1998, pp. 52–56, 87.

Newsweek, December 23, 2002, p. 75.

New Yorker, September 30, 1996, pp. 43–47.

New York Times, December 30, 1984.

People Weekly, March 24, 1997, p. 35.

Publishers Weekly, January 21, 2002, pp. 52–56.

TV Guide, August 1, 1998, p. 23.

Writer, November, 1997, p. 22.

Writer's Digest, Volume 77, issue 6, 1997, pp. 30–32.

Electronic:

The Official Elmore Leonard Website, http://www.elmoreleonard.com, January 2, 2005.

LEONARD, Elmore

LEONARD, Elmore. American, b. 1925. Genres: Novels, Mystery/Crime/Suspense, Westerns/Adventure. Career: Campbell Ewald advertising agency, Detroit, copywriter, 1950-61; writer of industrial and educational films, 1961-63; Elmore Leonard Advertising Co., director, 1963-66; full-time writer, 1967-. Publications: The Bounty Hunters, 1953; The Law at Randado, 1955; Escape from Five Shadows, 1956; East Stand at Saber River, 1959; in U.K. as Lawless River, 1959, 2nd U.K. ed. as Stand on the Saber, 1960; Hombre, 1961; Valdez Is Coming, 1969; The Big Bounce, 1969; The Moonshine War, 1969; Forty Lashes Less One, 1972; Mr. Majestyk (novelization of screenplay), 1974; Fifty-Two Pickup, 1974; Swag, 1976, as Ryan's Rules, 1976; The Hunted, 1977; Unknown Man No. 89, 1977; The Switch, 1978; Gunsights, 1979; City Primeval, 1980; Gold Coast, 1980; Split Images, 1982; Cat Chaser, 1982; Stick, 1983; La Brava, 1983; Glitz, 1985; Bandits, 1987; Touch, 1987; Freaky Deaky, 1988; Killshot, 1989; Get Shorty, 1990; Maximum Bob, 1991; Elmore Leonard Three Complete Works, 1992; Rum Punch, 1992; Pronto, 1993; Riding the Rap, 1995; Out of Sight, 1996; Cuba Libre, 1997; The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories, 1998; Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #1-3, 1998-99; Be Cool, 1999; Pagan Babies, 2000; Tishomingo Blues, 2002; When the Women Came out to Dance (stories), 2002; Mr. Paradise, 2004. Address: c/o Michael Siegel, 11532 Thurston Circle, Los Angeles, CA 90049, U.S.A.