Leonard, Elmore (1925-2013), was an American author best known for his crime novels. Leonard’s books are not mystery stories. Instead, they are realistic novels about police officers, small-time criminals, and ordinary people drawn into dangerous situations. He heightened the realism of his fiction with background research. Leonard created believable characters and colorful dialogue.
Elmore John Leonard, Jr., was born on Oct. 11, 1925, in New Orleans and raised in Detroit, the setting for several of his novels. He was an advertising copywriter from 1950 to 1961 and left the advertising field entirely in 1966 to write full-time. He began to write Western fiction in the early 1950’s, writing each morning before going to work. His most notable Western novel was Hombre (1961).
Leonard completed his first crime novel, The Big Bounce, in 1969. His other novels include Fifty-Two Pickup (1974), Swag (1976), Unknown Man No. 89 (1977), The Switch (1978), Stick and LaBrava (both 1983), Glitz (1985), Bandits (1987), Freaky Deaky (1988), Get Shorty (1990), Rum Punch (1992), Pronto (1993), Riding the Rap (1995), Cuba Libre (1998), Be Cool (1999), Tishomingo Blues (2002), Mr. Paradise (2004), The Hot Kid (2005), Up in Honey’s Room (2007), Road Dogs (2009), and Raylan (2012). The Library of America published three collections of Leonard’s novels as Elmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1970s (2014), Elmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1980s (2015), and Elmore Leonard: Four Later Novels (2016).
Several of Leonard’s short stories were collected in When the Women Come Out to Dance (2002). His Western stories were published as The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard (2004). Sixteen of Leonard’s early stories were collected in Charlie Martz and Other Stories (published in 2015, after his death). Leonard also wrote screenplays and a children’s book, A Coyote’s in the House (2004). Leonard died on Aug. 20, 2013.
