Elmore Leonard Books In Order

Jack Ryan Books In Publication Order

  1. The Big Bounce (1969)
  2. Unknown Man #89 (1977)

Frank Ryan Books In Publication Order

  1. Swag / Ryan’s Rules (1976)
  2. Stick (1982)

Chili Palmer Books In Publication Order

  1. Get Shorty (1990)
  2. Be Cool (1999)

Raylan Givens Books In Publication Order

  1. Pronto (1993)
  2. Riding the Rap (1995)
  3. Fire in the Hole (2001)
  4. Raylan (2011)

Jack Foley Books In Publication Order

  1. Out Of Sight (1996)
  2. Road Dogs (2009)

Carl Webster Books In Publication Order

  1. The Hot Kid (2005)
  2. Up in Honey’s Room (2007)
  3. Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories (2009)

Ordell Robbie & Louis Gara Books In Publication Order

  1. The Switch (1978)
  2. Rum Punch (1992)

Elmore Leonard’s Western Roundup Books In Publication Order

  1. Elmore Leonard’s Western Roundup #1 (1998)
  2. Elmore Leonard’s Western Roundup #2 (1998)
  3. Elmore Leonard’s Western Roundup #3 (1998)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. The Bounty Hunters (1953)
  2. The Law at Randado (1954)
  3. Escape from Five Shadows (1956)
  4. Last Stand at Saber River (1959)
  5. Hombre (1961)
  6. The Moonshine War (1969)
  7. Valdez Is Coming (1970)
  8. Forty Lashes Less One (1972)
  9. 52 Pick Up (1974)
  10. Mr Majestyk (1974)
  11. The Hunted (1977)
  12. Gunsights (1979)
  13. Gold Coast (1980)
  14. City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit (1980)
  15. Split Images (1981)
  16. Cat Chaser (1982)
  17. LaBrava (1983)
  18. Glitz (1985)
  19. Bandits (1987)
  20. Touch (1987)
  21. Freaky Deaky (1988)
  22. Killshot (1989)
  23. Maximum Bob (1991)
  24. Cuba Libre (1998)
  25. Pagan Babies (2000)
  26. Tishomingo Blues (2002)
  27. Mr. Paradise (2004)
  28. A Coyote’s in the House (2004)
  29. Djibouti (2010)
  30. The Trespassers (2013)
  31. Confession (2013)

Short Story Collections In Publication Order

  1. Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories (1953)
  2. The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories (1975)
  3. Dutch Treat (1985)
  4. When the Women Come Out to Dance (2001)
  5. The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard (2004)
  6. The Complete Western Stories (2004)
  7. Moment of Vengeance and Other Stories (2006)
  8. Blood Money and Other Stories (2006)
  9. Trail of the Apache and Other Stories (2007)
  10. Charlie Martz and Other Stories (2015)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Notebooks (1990)
  2. Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing (2006)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. New Trails: Twenty-Three Original Stories (1994)
  2. Naked Came the Manatee (1997)
  3. Western Movies (1997)
  4. The Best American Mystery Stories 1997 (1997)
  5. The Best American Mystery Stories 2003 (2003)
  6. Books to Die For (2012)
  7. The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 (2016)
  8. Miami Noir (2020)

Jack Ryan Book Covers

Frank Ryan Book Covers

Chili Palmer Book Covers

Raylan Givens Book Covers

Jack Foley Book Covers

Carl Webster Book Covers

Ordell Robbie & Louis Gara Book Covers

Elmore Leonard’s Western Roundup Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Story Collections Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Elmore Leonard Books Overview

The Big Bounce

Jack Ryan has a man’s fists, and the cunning of an ex con. Nancy Hayes has a woman’s sleek moves and the instincts of a shark. Now, in a Michigan resort town, a rich man wants Jack gone and Nancy for himself. For Ryan the choice is clear: Nancy’s promises of pleasure, her crazy, thrill seeking schemes of breaking into homes, shooting guns and maybe stealing a whole lot of money are driving him half mad. But there’s one thing Ryan doesn’t know yet: his new playmate is planning the deadliest thrill of all. Razor sharp and wholly unpredictable, The Big Bounce is an Elmore Leonard classic a sly, beguiling story of a man, a woman and a nasty little crime.

Unknown Man #89

Detroit process server Jack Ryan has a reputation for being the best in the business at finding people who don’t want to be found. Now he’s looking for a missing stockholder known only as ‘Unknown Man No. 89.’ But his missing man isn’t ‘unknown’ to everyone: a pretty blonde hates his guts and a very nasty dude named Royal wants him dead in the worst way. Which is very unfortunate for Jack Ryan, who is suddenly caught in the crossfire of a lethal triple cross and as much a target as his nameless prey.

Swag / Ryan’s Rules

The smallest of small time criminals, Ernest Stickley Jr. figures his luck’s about to change when Detroit used car salesman Frank Ryan catches him trying to boost a ride from Ryan’s lot. Frank’s got some surefire schemes for getting rich quick all of them involving guns and all Stickley has to do is follow ‘Ryan’s Rules’ to share the wealth. But sometimes rules need to be bent, maybe even broken, if one is to succeed in the world of crime, especially if the ‘brains’ of the operation knows less than nothing.

Stick

After serving time for armed robbery, Ernest ‘StickStickley is back on the outside and trying to stay legit. But it’s tough staying straight in a crooked town and Miami is a pirate’s paradise, where investment fat cats and lowlife drug dealers hold hands and dance. And when a crazed player chooses Stick at random to die for another man’s sins, the struggling ex con is left with no choice but to dive right back into the game. Besides, Stick knows a good thing when he sees it and a golden opportunity to run a very profitable sweet revenge scam seems much too tasty to pass up.

Get Shorty

Loan shark Chili Palmer didn’t say anything when Ray Bones stole his leather jacket from Vesuvio’s in Miami. He just went to Ray’s house, broke his nose, took the jacket, and left. Twelve years later, on account of his boss getting whacked, Chili finds himself working for Bones and ordered to collect on a bad debt from Leo Devoe, a guy who died in a plane crash. But it turns out Leo isn’t dead; he’s in Las Vegas with the $300,000 the airline paid to his wife. So Chili follows him to Vegas and then on to Hollywood, where he hooks up with movie producers, actors, and studio execs. Getting Leo becomes a movie pitch unfolding in a city where every move you make is a potential scene, and making it big isn’t all that different from making your bones: You gotta know who to pitch, who to hit, and how to knock ’em dead.

Be Cool

New York Times bestselling author Elmore Leonard is back, and he’s brought Get Shorty’s Chili Palmer along for the ride. An unforgettable, hilarious, and spot on insider’s look at Hollywood as only Leonard could write it, Be Cool takes readers on a back side tour of Tinseltown’s other big business the music industry. Chili Palmer’s follow up to his smash hit film Get Leo bombed, and in Hollywood, you’re considered only as hot as your last project. Once again outside the system, Chili is exploring an idea for his third film by lunching with a former ‘associate’ from his Brooklyn days who’s now a record label executive. When lunch begins with iced tea and ends in a mob hit, Chili soon finds himself in an unlikely alliance with one of the LAPD’s finest, Detective Darryl Holmes, and the very likely next target of Russian gangsters. With a hit man on his trail, Chili tries to pull together his next movie, the story of Linda Moon, a real life singer with dreams that go further than her current gig with Chicks International, just doing Spice Girls songs. She’s desperate to tear loose from her current manager, an erstwhile pimp named Raji. Orchestrating his movie as he goes along, Chili wrests the reins of Linda’s singing career away from Raji, basing the plot of his new film on the action that unfolds as a result. As he fakes his way to success in the music business with his trademark aplomb, Chili manipulates his adversaries and advances his friends, showing all how to Be Cool when the heat’s on. With his unique combination of the good, the bad, and the unexpected, Elmore Leonard has written a novel that twists and turns to the last page. From screen tests to rock sessions, from the Hills and the Valley to Hollywood and Vine, Be Cool is all new, all clever and, most definitely, all that.

Pronto

Harry Arno was grossing six to seven thousand dollars a week running a South Miami Beach gambling operation. To protect his position, he was forced to cut a deal with the local muscle, Jimmy Capotorto Jimmy Cap to the likes of Harry, an even fifty fifty split. For years Harry had been padding his own stake by skimming a grand a week off the top. A couple of local detectives wise to sticky fingers try to bag Jimmy the Cap by putting the squeeze on Harry. Now, the dicks suggest, would be a good time for Harry to rat the mobster out.U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens has his own agenda. He has to deliver Harry to a Federal grand jury to testify at Jimmy’s drug running trial. Even though he’s a step slower that he used to be, Harry’s no fool. When Jimmy Cap’s men are a hair too slow gunning him down and Raylan’s surveillance slips, Harry’s already two steps ahead of them. Years of preparation pay off and Harry slips out of the country Pronto. Being on the lam is no time to get soft, but Harry didn’t plan on missing his companion Joyce so much. Sneaking her to his hideout could save him from loneliness but Joyce’s quick departure tips off his trackers. Jimmy Cap’s men follow Joyce while Raylan stays close behind. The three sides end up in Rapallo, Italy, watching their own backs while keeping abreast of Harry’s. But it’s not until the chase leads back to Miami that the real winners and losers are revealed. Pronto is classic Elmore LeonardFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

Riding the Rap

Many imitate him but none can touch him. He’s set the standard against which all other crime novels are measured. His signature is vise tightening suspense, crackling dialogue, and deadeye wit. And now, in Riding the Rap, Elmore Leonard proves once again that he is ‘the greatest living writer of crime fiction.’ The New York Times Raylan Givens, U.S. Marshal, is working on Warrants, bringing in fugitive felons, when Harry Arno disappears again and Raylan feels obliged to find him. This time with misgivings. Raylan believes Harry has dropped out of site to get attention and win back his former lover, Joyce, who had fallen into Raylan’s arms, but now seems concerned only with Harry’s welfare. The last person to see Harry is a nifty young psychic certified medium and spiritualist named Dawn Navarro. As soon as Raylan talks to her he senses that Harry has very likely beenkidnapped and Dawn is involved. Cut to the bad guys. Chip Ganz describes his idea, a way to make millions, as ‘taking hostages.’ Not unlike the way it was done in Lebanon, but this time for profit. Does he mean kidnapping? ‘In a way,’ Chip tells his ex con accomplice, Louis Lewis and Bobby Deo, ‘only different. A lot different.’ It’s the victim who has to come up with a way to pay the ransom. ‘It had better be the best idea you’ve ever had,’ Chip tells Harry, blindfolded and in chains. ‘Because if we don’t like it, you’re dead.’ In time Raylan’s pretty sure he knows where Harry is being held, but doesn’t have ‘probable cause’ to get a warrant and gain entry. As he closes in, though, Chip’s hostage plan begins to come apart and the scene is set for a showdown one of the best you’ll ever see.

Fire in the Hole

In this superb short fiction collection, Elmore Leonard, the greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever New York Times Book Review, once again illustrates how the line between the law and the lawbreakers is not as firm as we might think. In the title story, the basis for the hit FX series Justified, U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens meets up with an old friend, but they re now on different sides of the law. Federal marshal Karen Sisco, from Out of Sight, returns in Karen Makes Out, once again inadvertently mixing pleasure with business. In When the Women Come Out to Dance, Mrs. Mahmood gets more than she bargains for when she conspires with her maid to end her unhappy marriage. These nine stories are the great Elmore Leonard at his vivid, hilarious, and unfailingly human best.

Raylan

Elmore Leonard can write circles around almost anybody active in the crime novel today. New York Times Book ReviewWith more than forty novels to his credit and still going strong, the legendary Elmore Leonard has well earned the title, America’s greatest crime writer Newsweek. And U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens Pronto, Riding the Rap, Fire in the Hole is one of Leonard s most popular creations, thanks in part to the phenomenal success of the hit TV series Justified. Leonard s Raylan shines a spotlight once again on the dedicated, if somewhat trigger happy lawman, this time in his familiar but not particularly cozy milieu of Harlan County, Kentucky, where the drug dealing Crowe brothers are branching out into the human body parts business. Suspenseful, darkly wry and riveting, and crackling with Leonard s trademark electric dialogue, Raylan is prime Grand Master Leonard as you have always loved him and always will.

Out Of Sight

In his latest work, the unrivaled master of the crime novel once again breaks all the rules as he redefines the standards of the art. Out Of Sight crackles with originality and wicked brilliance, displaying all the razor sharp dialogue, inimitable wit, and memorable characters who have become the signature of ‘our greatest crime novelist…
the best in the business’ The Washington Post. Deputy U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco is just stopping off to serve a summons and complaint on Florida’s Glades Prison. She’s all decked out in her black Chanel suit and heels, but ready with her pump action shotgun when the breakout begins, minutes after she pulls into the prison parking lot. But she’s not ready for Jack Foley, the celebrity con who disarms her, invites her to climb into the trunk of her own car, and then joins her as his pal Buddy guns the blue Caprice onto the highway, heading for freedom. Squeezed into a trunk littered with handcuffs and tactical gear, the escapee bank robber is a perfect gentleman who shares her passion for movies and wonders if it would be different if they’d met in a bar. Karen escapes and they do meet again. Only this time she’s part of the federal task force hunting the escapees. This time she’s sitting in the bar of the Detroit Westin, nursing a sour mash and watching a blizzard outside. This time Foley finds her. First some cocktails and conversation. Then Time Out. In Karen’s suite. ‘You like taking risks,’ she says. ‘So do I.’Next morning Foley’s gone and Karen’s out to get him. She cruises Detroit’s mean street and boxing hangouts looking for Foley, Buddy, and a hardcase named Maurice, one step behind them as they plot the biggest heist of their careers and a double cross that will leave only one man holding the goods. This time Karen means business as she races toward a hair raising climax that careens pell mell into suspense writing history.

Road Dogs

Legendary New York Times bestselling author Elmore Leonard returns with three of his favorite characters: Jack Foley from Out of Sight, Cundo Rey from LaBrava, and Dawn Navarro from Riding the Rap.

Jack Foley, the charming bank robber from Out of Sight, is serving a thirty-year sentence in a Miami penitentiary, but he’s made an unlikely friend on the inside who just might be able to do something about that. Fellow inmate Cundo Rey, an extremely wealthy Cuban criminal, arranges for Foley’s sentence to be reduced from thirty years to three months, and when Jack is released just two weeks ahead of Cundo, he agrees to wait for him in Venice Beach, California.

Also waiting for Cundo is his common-law wife, Dawn Navarro, a professional psychic with a slightly ulterior motive for staying with Cundo: namely, she wants his money. And with the arrival of Jack, she sees the perfect partner in a plan to relieve Cundo of his fortune. Cundo may be Jack’s friend, but does that mean he can trust him? And can either of them trust Dawn?

Road Dogs is Elmore Leonard at his best-with his trademark tight plotting and pitch-perfect dialogue-and readers will love seeing Cundo, Jack, and Dawn back in action and working together…
or are they?

The Hot Kid

Carlos Webster was fifteen in the fall of 1921 the first time he came face to face with a nationally known criminal. A few weeks later, he killed his first man& 8212a cattle thief who was rustling his dad’s stock. Now Carlos, called Carl, is The Hot Kid of the U.S. Marshals Service, one of the elite manhunters currently chasing the likes of Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd across America’s Depression ravaged heartland. Carl wants to be the country’s most famous lawman. Jack Belmont, the bent son of an oil millionaire, wants to be public enemy number one. Tony Antonelli of True Detective magazine wants to write about this world of cops and robbers, molls and speakeasies from perilously close up. Then there are the hot dames& 8212Louly and Elodie& 8212hooking their schemes and dreams onto dangerous men. And before the gunsmoke clears, everybody just might end up getting exactly what he or she wished for.

Up in Honey’s Room

The odd thing about Walter Schoen, German born but now running a butcher shop in Detroit, he’s a dead ringer for Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and the Gestapo. They even share the same birthday. Honey Deal, Walter’s American wife, doesn’t know that Walter is a member of a spy ring that sends U.S. war production data to Germany and gives shelter to escaped German prisoners of war. But she’s tired of telling him jokes he doesn’t understand it’s time to get a divorce. Along comes Carl Webster, the hot kid of the Marshals Service. He’s looking for Jurgen Schrenk, a former Afrika Korps officer who escaped from a POW camp in Oklahoma. Carl’s pretty sure Walter’s involved with keeping Schrenk hidden, so Carl gets to know Honey, hoping she’ll take him to Walter. Carl then meets Vera Mezwa, the nifty Ukrainian head of the spy ring who’s better looking than Mata Hari, and her tricky lover Bohdan with the Buster Brown haircut and a sly way of killing. Honey’s a free spirit; she likes the hot kid marshal and doesn’t much care that he’s married. But all Carl wants is to get Jurgen Schrenk without getting shot. And then there’s Otto the Waffen SS major who runs away with a nice Jewish girl. It’s Elmore Leonard’s world gritty, funny, and full of surprises.

Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories

The ‘Hot Kid’ of the U.S. Marshals Service, Carl Webster maintains the law with a cool, showdown attitude. He’s one of the richest creations in Elmore Leonard’s half century of delivering the goods. From his appearances in the critically acclaimed novels The Hot Kid and Up in Honey’s Room, Carl returns to lay down the law in a novella that originally appeared as a serial in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. The title novella plus two Carl Webster short stories traces Carl’s career from his run in with 1930’s gangsters to his investigation of a murder at a German POW camp in Oklahoma. This time it’s Carl against war seasoned Afrika Korps Na*zis. With its pitch perfect dialogue, compelling characters, and classic charm, Comfort to the Enemy is vintage Leonard.

The Switch

Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara hit it off in prison, where they were both doing time for grand theft auto. Now that they’re out, they’re joining forces for one big score. The plan is to kidnap the wife of a wealthy Detroit developer and hold her for ransom. But they didn’t figure the lowlife husband wouldn’t want his lady back. So it’s time for Plan B and the opportunity to make a real killing with the unlikely help of a beautiful, ticked off housewife who’s hungry for a large helping of sweet revenge.

Rum Punch

Pretty working girl Jackie Burke is in a tight spot. She’s just been picked up at Palm Beach International with fifty grand and some blow stashed in her flight bag. Lucky for her, the Feds want something Jackie’s got: the inside track to Ordell Robbie, the notoriusly slick arms dealer. And they’re ready to deal Ordell in exchange for her freedom. But Jacki’s got another ace up her sleeve…
Enter Max Cherry, bail bondsman. Big, tough, basically decent Max is on the verge of divorce and tired of the same old grind. That’s where Jackie comes in. The fifty big ones are peanuts compared to what Ordell’s got locked away in Freeport. But when a blond blowhead and a none too bright ex con try to muscle in on the action, it’s time to pull and old bait and switch where the good guys are played off against the bad guys and where Jackie and Max hope to walk off into the Florida sunset with a hot half million in cold cash.

Elmore Leonard’s Western Roundup #2

Escape From Five Shadows: It was supposed to be impossible. No man could break out of the brutal convict labor camp at Five Shadows. Until they locked up Bowen. He was like dynamite charged to go off, to explode out of that desert hell so he could clear his name. Already the deadly trackers have caught him, dragged him back through the mesquite and rocks, beat him and left him to rot in the punishment cell. But they can’t stop Bowen. He’s a different breed, a man who will go to any extreme to escape. Any extreme. Last Stand at Saber River: A one armed man stood before Denaman’s store, and the girl named Luz was scared. Paul Cable could see that from the rise two hundred yards away, just as he could see that everything had changed while he was away fighting for the Confederacy. He just didn’t know how much. Cable and his family rode down to Denaman’s store and faced the one armed man. Then they heard the story, about the Union Army and two brothers and a beautiful woman who had taken over Cable’s spread and weren’t going to give it back. For Paul Cable the war hadn’t ended at all. Among the men at Saber River, some would be his enemies, some might have been his friends, but no one was going to take his future away not with words, not with treachery, and not with gunsThe Law at Randado: Kirby Frye was a local boy come home again with a badge and a reputation in some circles. But to the men with money in Randado, Kirby Frye meant nothing. Twelve upstanding citizens, prompted by a hard drinking, free spending cattleman, hanged two of Kirby’s prisoners behind his back. Then they laughed in his face. Frye was young, but he was no fool. He took their taunts, took their hired men’s blows, and waited. For with a hotheaded sheriff from Tucson and a breed tracker on Kirby’s side, it would be three men against many. And what they didn’t know about Kirby Frye was that three against many was good enough for him good enough to go up against their guns, good enough to bring the law back to Randado, and good enough to drive a rich man to his knees.

Elmore Leonard’s Western Roundup #3

Valdez Is Coming: The shotgun went off aimed at the wrong man, held in the wrong man’s hands. A crowd had gathered to drink and laugh and shoot down at the old shack where a supposed killer was hiding out. Then Bob Valdez, humble town constable and stage line shotgun rider, walked down to the shack. Moments later Valdez had killed an innocent man, and the crowd, sapped of its bloodlust, wandered off. But for Bob Valdez it was far from over. He wanted the wealthy landowner who had enginnered the scene to give the dead man’s woman money for a wrongful death. They laughed at Bob Valdez. They taunted him and beat him until Valdez had no choice but to come back to them again. Only this time Valdez was coming with three guns three guns and the will to teach a rich man’s army how costly atonement can get. Hombre: Set in Arizona mining country, Hombre is the story of a stagecoach held up by outlaws. One of the passengers, John Russell, is a white man who was raised partly by Apache Indians, and knows first hand the indignities suffered by them at the hands of the whites who control the reservations. He has also learned to live and fight like an Apache. Combatting the outlaws, Russell finds himself faced with the decision of whether to save only himself or to save his fellow white passengers. John Russell becomes the key player in a drama examining man’s responsibilities to his fellow man, acted out on a dusty stage in America’s Wild West.

The Bounty Hunters

David Flynn is a legend in the rugged Arizona Territory a US cavalry man turned army scout, and the only man alive who can bring in the fierce Mimbre Apache called Soldado Viejo. When a cunning outlaw and a murderous bounty hunter dog his path, Flynn finds himself on the deadliest mission of his career, riding hard for trouble on a bloody trail of treachery and slaughter. Originally published in 1953, The Bounty Hunters was Leonard’s first published book.

The Law at Randado

Phil Sundeen thinks Deputy Sheriff Kirby Frye is just a green local kid with a tin badge. And when the wealthy cattle baron’s men drag two prisoners from Frye’s jail and hang them from a high tree, there’s nothing the untried young lawman can do about it. But Kirby’s got more grit than Sundeen and his hired muscles bargained for. They can beat the boy and humilate him, but they can’t make him forget the jog he has sworn to do. The cattleman has money, fear, and guns on his side, but Kirby Frye’s the law in this godforsaken corner of the Arizona Territories. And he’ll drag Sundeen and his killers straight to hell himself to prove it.

Escape from Five Shadows

No one breaks out of the brutal convict labor camp at Five Shadows but Corey Bowen is ready to die trying. They framed him to put him in there, and beat him bloody and nearly dead after his last escape attempt. He’ll have help this time from a lady with murder on her mind and a debt to pay back. Because freedom isn’t enough for primed dynamite like Bowen. And he won’t leave the corrupt desert hell behind him until a few scores are settled…
permanently.

Last Stand at Saber River

A quiet, haunted man, Paul Cable walked away from a lost cause hoping to pick up where he left off. But things have changed in Arizona since he first rode out to go fight for the Confederacy. Two brothers Union men have claimed his spread and they’re not about to give it back, leaving Cable and his family no place to settle in peace. It seems this war is not yet over for Paul Cable. But no one’s going to take away his land and his future not with their laws, their lies, or their guns.

Hombre

John Russell has been raised as an Apache. Now he’s on his way to live as a white man. But when the stagecoach passengers learn who he is, they want nothing to do with him until outlaws ride down on them and they must rely on Russell’s guns and his ability to lead them out of the desert. He can’t ride with them, but they must walk with him or die.

Valdez Is Coming

They laughed at Roberto Valdez and then ignored him. But when a dark skinned man was holed up in a shack with a gun, they sent the part time town constable to deal with the problem and made sure he had no choice but to gun the fugitive down. Trouble was, Valdez killed an innocent man. And when he asked for justice and some money for the dead man’s woman they beat Valdez and tied him to a cross. They were still laughing when Valdez came back. And then they began to die…

Forty Lashes Less One

The hell called Yuma Prison can destroy the soul of any man. And it’s worse for those whose damning crime is the color of their skin. The law says Chiricahua Apache Raymond San Carlos and black as night former soldier Harold Jackson are murderers, and they’ll stay behind bars until they’re dead and rotting. But even in the worst place on Earth, there’s hope. And for two hard and hated inmates first enemies, then allies by necessity it waits at the end of a mad and violent contest…
on a bloody trail that winds toward Arizona’s five most dangerous men.

52 Pick Up

Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell had had only one affair in his twenty two years of happy matrimony. Unfortunately someone caught his indiscretion on film and now wants Harry to fork over one hundred grand to keep his infidelity a secret. And if Harry doesn’t pay up, the blackmailer and his associates plan to press a lot harder up to and including homicide, if necessary. But the psychos picked the wrong pigeon for their murderous scam. Because Harry Mitchell doesn’t get mad…
he gets even.

Mr Majestyk

Vincent Majestyk saw too much death in the jungles of Southeast Asia. All he wants to do now is farm his melons and forget. But peace can be an elusive commodity, even in the Arizona hinterlands and especially when the local mob is calling all the shots. And one quiet, proud man’s refusal to be strong armed by a powerful hood is about to start a violent chain reaction that will leave Mr. Majestyk ruined, in shackles, and without a friend in the world except for one tough and beautiful woman. But his tormentors never realized something about their mark: this is not his first war. Vince Majestyk knows more than they’ll ever know about survival…
and everything about revenge.

The Hunted

Al Rosen was doing just fine, hiding out in Israel until he decided to play Good Samaritan and rescue some elderly tourists from a hotel fire. Now his picture’s been carried in the stateside press, and the guys he’s been hiding from know exactly where he is. And they’re coming to get him crooked lawyers, men with guns and money, and assorted members of the Detroit mob who are harboring a serious grudge. Playtime in paradise is officially over; Rosen’s a million miles from home with a bull’s eye on his back. And his only ally is a U.S. Embassy marine who’s been looking for a war…
and who’s damn well found one.

Gunsights

Brendan Early and Dana Moon have tracked renegade Apaches together and gunned down scalp hunters to become Arizona legends. But now they face each other from opposite sides of what newspapers are calling The Rincon Mountain War. Brendan and a gang of mining company gun thugs are dead set on running Dana and ‘the People of the Mountain’ from their land. The characters are unforgettable, the plot packed with action and gunfights from beginning to end.

Gold Coast

When he kicked off, Florida mob boss Frank DiCilia left his gorgeous widow Karen everything, but with strings attached. She loses the millions, the cars, the palatial Gold Coast mansion if she ever gets involved with another man. And there’s a crazy cowboy wannabe thug named Roland who’s acting as Frank’s eyes beyond the grave, making sure Karen doesn’t dally, with serious muscle, if necessary. But now Cal Maguire’s come into the picture. A sexy, street smart Detroit ex con, Cal’s got a line and a scam for every occasion. And he’s got the perfect plan for getting Karen DiCilia her money and her freedom…
if it doesn’t get them both killed first.

City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit

Clement Mansell knows how easy it is to get away with murder. The seriously crazed killer is already back on the Detroit streets thanks to some nifty courtroom moves by his crafty looker of a lawyer and he’s feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge on a whim. Homicide Detective Raymond Cruz thinks the ‘Oklahoma Wildman’ crossed the line long before this latest outrage, and he’s determined to see that the hayseed psycho does not slip through the legal system’s loopholes a second time. But that means a good cop is going to have to play somewhat fast and loose with the rules in order to maneuver Mansell into a wild Midwest showdown that he won’t be walking away from.

Split Images

Quintessential Elmore Leonard, Split Images stars Palm Beach playboy Robbie Daniels. He’s the kind of guy who gets away with everything even murder until a vacationing Motown cop, Bryan Hurd, starts asking questions. When this millionaire reptile reveals the psychopath beneath his slippery skin, Hurd finds out this is one helluva way for an out of town lawman to spend his vacation.

Cat Chaser

The last time Florida motel owner George Moran was in the Dominican Republic he was in a uniform and people were shooting at him. Years later he’s back looking for a girl he lost and finding one he’d be better off without. But that doesn’t matter to George while he’s sleeping with beautiful Mary de Boya only when he discovers his lover is the wife of a former death squad general in exile with solid mob connections. Now George is bringing big trouble back with him to the Sunshine State as his nostalgic trip down memory lane has tangled him up in a cat’s cradle of drug deals, swindles, vengeance and murder…
and a love that’s not only blind but lethal.

LaBrava

Joe LaBrava first fell in love in a darkened movie theater when he was twelve with a gorgeous femme fatale up on the screen. Now the one time Secret Service agent turned photographer is finally meeting his dream woman in the flesh, albeit in a rundown Miami crisis center. When she’s cleaned up and sober, though, former movie queen Jean Shaw still makes LaBrava‘s heart race. And now she’s being terrorized by a redneck thug and his slimy marielito partner, which gives Joe a golden opportunity to play the hero. But the lady’s predicament is starting to resemble one of her earlier cinematic noirs. And if he’s not careful, LaBrava could end up the patsy or dead in the final reel.

Glitz

Psycho mama’s boy Teddy Magyk has a serious jones for the Miami cop who put him away for raping a senior citizen but he wants to hit Vincent Mora where it really hurts before killing him. So when a beautiful Puerto Rican hooker takes a swan dive from an Atlantic City high rise and Vincent naturally shows up to investigate the questionable death of his ‘special friend,’ Teddy figures he’s got his prey just where he wants him. But the A.C. dazzle is blinding the Magic Man to a couple of very hard truths: Vincent Mora doesn’t forgive and forget…
and he doesn’t die easy.

Bandits

Working at his brother in law’s New Orleans funeral home isn’t reformed jewel thief Jack Delaney’s idea of excitement until he’s dispatched to a leper’s hospital to pick up a corpse that turns out to be very much alive…
and under the care of a beautiful, radical ex nun in designer jeans. The ‘deceased’ is the one time squeeze of a Nicaraguan colonel who’s ordered her dead for trying to ‘infect’ him, and Sister Lucy’s looking to spirit the young woman away from his guns and goons. Plus Lucy’s getting ideas about spiriting away some of the colonel’s millions as well and someone with Jack Delaney’s talents could come in very handy indeed.

Touch

Another crime classic by the bestselling author of Be Cool and Cuba Libre. Charlie Lawson has the Touch. A former Franciscan monk kicked out of the Order for faith healing too many of the afflicted, now he finds it hard to be a saint in the city, as his gift attracts a slew of cash hungry hucksters and a beautiful baton twirler who wants him to lay his hands on her. This Quill edition features an introduction that appeared only in the hardcover edition, in which Leonard discusses the novel’s unusual subject, noting, ‘I had a good time writing Touch, imagining mystical things happening to an ordinary person in a contemporary setting.’ Treating a theme that has found new timeliness, Touch is perhaps Leonard’s most moving, erotic love story; yet its violent and unexpected climax is pure, suspenseful Leonard.

Freaky Deaky

He used to be on the bomb squad, but it’s not until he transfers out that Chris Mankowski really begins juggling with dynamite. Rape and revenge are just the tip of the iceberg in a twisty tale that brings Detroit’s denizens to life and occasional death in all their seedy glory. Electrifying, explosive, and unexpected, this is Elmore Leonard at his suspenseful best.

Killshot

Armand Degas is a Mafia hit man the guys call Blackbird. He is cool and composed and knows a good score. So when punk crook Richie Nix tells him about his surefire scheme to extort $10,000 from a middle of nowhere Michigan real estate agent, Armand signs on. What the two thugs don’t count on is Carmen Colson and her ironworker husband, Wayne, being in the real estate office when they go in to collect. Now Carmen and Wayne know too much and Armand has no intention of letting them survive to tell about it. But Wayne’s sure the local cops are going to fumble the manhunt, and the best the feds can offer is the Witness Security Program. Now it’s come down to one man, one woman, and two killers…
and someone’s bound to end up on the wrong end of the gun.

Maximum Bob

Enter the world of Elmore Leonard. The setting is Palm Beach County, Florida, where someone places a live ten foot alligator in the backyard of the bigoted, redneck judge Bob Gibbs known to all as Maximum Bob and his wife, Leanne, a former Weeki Wachee mermaid. Not long after that, shots are fired into the judge’s house. It doesn’t take much figuring to conclude that someone’s out to get him and that malefactor isn’t going to stop at the second try. There’s a long list of suspects: Dale Crowe, who just got an outrageous sentence for a minor crime; his uncle Elvin, a killer on parole, raring to go again; Dr. Tommy Vasco, the drugged out former medical doctor; his equally bizarre friend, Hector; and Dicky Campau, who makes a living poaching alligators. And there are others. Somehow Kathy Baker, a nifty young probation officer, has got herself in the middle of all this. She’s got to avoid two seducers the judge and a homicidal maniac and work with a young police officer who interests her for more than professional reasons. Trying to pick out from his assortment of bad guys, sociopaths, and punks the one who’s trying to kill the judge is pure entertainment, as only Elmore Leonard, with his ear for the sound and eye for the sight of lowlife, can provide. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Cuba Libre

Set on the eve of the Spanish American War, Elmore Leonard’s electrifying novel takes off like a shot. A spellbinding journey into the heart and soul of the Cuban revolution of a hundred years ago, Cuba Libre is an explosive mix of high adventure, history brought to life, and a honey of a love story all with the dead on dialogue and unforgettable characters that mark Elmore Leonard as an American original. Just three days after the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor, Ben Tyler arrives with a string of horses to sell cover for a boatload of guns he’s running to Cuban insurgents, risking a firing squad if he’s caught. This cowboy’s first day ashore sets the pace for a wild ride to come. He sells the horses to an American planter, Roland Boudreaux, who’s making a killing in Cuba…
meets the man’s sparkly New Orleans born mistress, Amelia Brown, and falls in love…
makes an enemy of a terrorizing Guardia Civil officer named Tavalera, and a friend of a mysterious old Cuban, Victor Fuentes…
is forced into a gunfight and thrown in prison, Tavalera determined to nail him as a spy. Tyler has done time in the past for robbing banks, but never in a place like Morro Castle. America is about to declare war on Spain, and if Tyler doesn’t manage to get out very soon, he’s a dead man. How his escape comes about, with surprising help, is the high point from which the plot takes off on a train ride across Cuba, with Tyler and Amelia looking for more than love, a lot more a chance to snatch a bundle of Boudreaux’s cash, if they can pull it off. But who can you trust? Everyone’s a schemer in this one. Leonard breaks new ground in this rip roaring jaunt into history, packed with all the twists, turns, sly plot, and wicked wit his fans have come to expect of the writer who has redefined the art of the novel. Elmore Leonard has written thirty four novels, including such bestsellers as Out of Sight, Riding the Rap, Pronto, Rum Punch, and Get Shorty, and numerous screenplays. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village, Michigan.

Pagan Babies

Four Cassettes, 6 hrs. Performance by Steve BuscemiIn Rwanda during the genocide, Hutu thugs storm into a church and kill everyone except Father Terry Dunn, on the alter saying his first mass. He’s powerless to do anything about it until one day he faces several of the killers and exacts a chilling penance. But is Terry Dunn really a priest?He doesn’t always appear to act like one. He comes home to Detroit and runs into Debbie Dewey who’s doing standup at a comedy club. In her set, Debbie tells what it was like in prison, down for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Terry and Debie hit it off; they have the same sense of humor and similar goals in that both are out to raise money. Terry says for the Little Orphans of Rwanda; Debbie to score off a guy who conned her out of sixty seven thousand dollars. This is Randy, now wealthy, who runs a fashionable restaurant and is connected to the Detroit Mafia. It’s Debbie who keeps prying until she learns the bizarre truth about Terry; Debbie who sells him on going in together for a much bigger payoff than either could manage alone. What happened in Rwanda remains alive through the unexpected twists and turns of the plot. But even with this tragic background. Pagan Babies comes off as Leonard’s funniest straight faced novel to date.

Tishomingo Blues

Dennis Lenahan the high diver would tell people that if you put a fifty cent piece on the floor and looked down at it, that’s what the tank looked like from the top of that eighty foot steel ladder. Dennis is a daredevil and the girls love him. Things are going along okay with his gig at the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino in Tunica, Mississippi, ‘the Casino Capital of the South,’ until the day he looks down from the high dive platform and witnesses a mob hit Dixie style. The killer looks up and says, ‘Let’s see you dive.’ Suddenly, being a daredevil has lost its kick. Turns out there was a second witness, Robert Taylor from Detroit, who carries a picture of his great granddaddy’s lynching along with a gun in a briefcase and listens to Marvin Pontiac while cruising the back roads of Mississippi in his black Jaguar. Robert works for a man from up north who has come to play General Grant in a Civil War battle reenactment, but like Dennis, Robert has a death defying act of his own: he’s sleeping with his boss’s wife. Thirty seven miles from Tunica is the famous ‘crossroads’ where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for a style of funky blues that had never been heard before. Robert Taylor is about to introduce Dennis to a ‘crossroads’ of his own. He has a secret agenda for taking on the Cornbread Cosa Nostra and wants Dennis in on it. To complicate matters are the women. Some are dressed in hoop skirts, and all of them have plans of their own. Vernice lures Dennis with the whitest thighs he’s ever seen. Diane comes to do a story on him and wants to take him to Memphis. And still another comes along to give Dennis the surprise of his life. But it’s the scams Robert Taylor plays, drawing Dennis into his game, that move the action through all kinds of unexpected twists and turns. Before he knows it, Dennis has agreed to join Robert in the battle reenactment, which leads to a showdown between the bad guys and the really bad guys. Tishomingo Blues rings true with the bestselling author’s dead on dialogue, capturing the flavor and rhythms of the South, and finds him plotting at his unpredictable best.

Mr. Paradise

Roommates Kelly and Chloe are enjoying their lives and their downtown Detroit loft just fine. Kelly is a Victoria’s Secret catalog model. Chloe is an escort, until she decides to ditch her varied clientele in favor of a steady gig as girlfriend to eighty four year old retired lawyer Tony Paradiso, a.k.a. Mr. Paradise.

Evenings at Mr. Paradise‘s house, there’s always an old Michigan football game on TV. And when Chloe’s around, there’s a cheerleader, too, complete with pleated skirt and blue and gold pompoms. One night Chloe convinces Kelly to join in the fun, along with Montez Taylor, Tony’s smooth talking right hand man.

But things go awry and before the end of the evening there will be two corpses, two angry hit men, one switch of identity, a safe deposit box full of loot up for grabs, and, fast on the scene, detective Frank Delsa, who now has a double homicide and a beautiful, willful witness to add to his already heavy caseload.

With a cool cast, snappy dialogue, and all the twists and turns fans crave, Mr. Paradise is Elmore Leonard at home in Detroit and sharper than ever.

A Coyote’s in the House

The first ever children’s book from the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling master of contemporary fiction Buddy’s an aging movie star. Antwan’s a rough and tumble loner. And Miss Betty, the show girl, is a princess. Different in nearly every way, they share one thing: they’re all dogs…
at heart. Though Antwan’s the leader of his pack and loves hanging in the hills, feasting from Hollywood’s chicest garbage cans, he’s too curious a coyote to turn down his new friend Buddy’s invitation to see how the other half lives. Convincing his new human family he’s a mysterious pooch named Timmy, Antwan quickly becomes part of the brood. But as Antwan’s star rises, Buddy’s spirits fall. Past his prime to humans, Buddy wants to chuck the luxury and live in the wild if Antwan will show him how. To cheer up their pal, Antwan and Miss Betty concoct a daring plan, setting off a chain of uproarious adventures that will teach them all a few new tricks about friendship, family, and life. Filled with the spot on dialogue and clever plotting that have made Elmore Leonard top dog among writers of every breed, A Coyote’s in the House reveals the inner life of canines wild and domesticated in a fresh, funny tale for the young and the young at heart.

Djibouti

Elmore Leonard, New York Times bestselling author and ‘the hippest, funniest national treasure in sight’ Washington Post, brings his trademark wit and inimitable style to this twisting, gripping-and sometimes playful-tale of modern-day piracy

Dara Barr, documentary filmmaker, is at the top of her game. She’s covered the rape of Bosnian women, neo-Na*zi white supremacists, and post-Katrina New Orleans, and has won awards for all three. Now, looking for a bigger challenge, Dara and her right-hand-man, Xavier LeBo, a six-foot-six, seventy-two-year-old African American seafarer, head to Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, to film modern-day pirates hijacking merchant ships.

They learn soon enough that almost no one in the Middle East is who he seems to be. The most successful pirate, driving his Mercedes around Djibouti, appears to be a good guy, but his pal, a cultured Saudi diplomat, has dubious connections. Billy Wynn, a Texas billionaire, plays mysterious roles as the mood strikes him. He’s promised his girlfriend, Helene, a nifty fashion model, that he’ll marry her if she doesn’t become seasick or bored while circling the world on his yacht. And there’s Jama Raisuli, a black al Qaeda terrorist from Miami, who’s vowed to blow up something big.

What Dara and Xavier have to decide, besides the best way to stay alive: Should they shoot the action as a documentary or turn it into a Hollywood feature film?

Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories

Trust was rare and precious in the wide open towns that sprung up like weeds on America’s frontier with hustlers and hucksters arriving in droves by horse, coach, wagon, and rail, and gunmen working both sides of the law, all too eager to end a man’s life with a well placed bullet. The New York Times bestselling Grand Master of suspense deftly displays the other side of his genius, with seven classic western tales of destiny and fatal decision…
and trust as essential to survival as it is hard earned.

The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories

From a forbidden glance on a Miami night to a killer’s slow burn on a Detroit street, no one mixes passion, scheming, and violence better than Elmore Leonard. But before he did it in Miami Beach or Motor City, Elmore Leonard did it on the American frontier. The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories is a raw, hard bitten collection that gathers together the best of Leonard’s Western fiction. In stories that burn with passion, treachery, and heroism, the American frontier comes vividly, magnificently to life. In ‘The Tonto Woman,’ a young wife, her face tattooed by Indian kidnappers, becomes society’s outcast until an outlaw vows to set her free…
. In ‘Only Good Ones,’ we meet a fine man turned killer in one impossible moment…
.’Saint with a Six Gun’ pits a doomed prisoner against his young guard in a drama of deception and compassion that leads to a shocking act of courage…
. In ‘The Colonel’s Lady,’ a brutal ambush puts a woman into the hands of a vicious renegade while a tracker attempts a rescue that cannot come in time…
and in ‘Blood Money,’ five bank robbers are being picked off one by one, but one man believes he can make it out alive. The wild and glorious spirit of the West comes alive in the hands of America’s greatest storyteller. Etching a harsh, haunting landscape with razor sharp prose, Elmore Leonard shows in nineteen brilliant stories why he has become the American poet laureate of the desperate and the bold.

When the Women Come Out to Dance

In his more than three dozen books, Elmore Leonard has captured the imagination of millions of readers as few writers can. A literary icon praised by The New York Times Book Review as ‘the greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever,’ he has influenced many contemporary writers and is known for both the quality and the accessibility of his writing. In this collection of new and recently published short fiction, Leonard demonstrates the superb characterizations, dead on dialogue, vivid atmosphere, and driving plotting that have made him a household name. And once more this master of crime illustrates that the line between the law and the lawbreakers is not as firm as we might think. Federal marshal Karen Sisco, from the bestselling novel Out of Sight, returns in ‘Karen Makes Out,’ once again inadvertently mixing pleasure with business. In ‘Fire in the Hole,’ Raylan Givens, last seen in Riding the Rap and Pronto, meets up with an old friend, but they’re now on different sides of the law. In the title story, ‘When the Women Come Out to Dance,’ Mrs. Mahmood gets more than she bargains for when she conspires with her maid to end her unhappy marriage. In all nine stories each unique in their own right reluctant heroes and laid back lowlifes struggle for power, survival, and their fifteen minutes of fame. Vivid, hilarious, and unfailingly human, these stories ring true with Elmore Leonard’s signature deadpan social observations and diabolical eye for the foibles of the good guys and the bad.

The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard

No one is more evocative of the dusty, gutsy hey day of the American West than Elmore Leonard. And no story about a young writer struggling to launch his career ever matched its subject matter better than the tale behind Leonard’s Western oeuvre. In 1950, fresh out of college having written two ‘pointless’ stories, as he describes them Leonard decided he needed to pick a market, a big one, which would give him a better chance to be published while he learned to write. In choosing between crime and Westerns, the latter had an irresistible pull Leonard loved movies set in the West. As he researched deeper into settings, Arizona in the 1880s captured his imagination: the Spanish influence, the standoffs and shootouts between Apache Indians and the U.S. cavalry…
His first dozen stories sold for 2 cents a word, for $100 each. The rest is history. This first ever complete collection of Leonard’s thirty Western tales will thrill lovers of the genre, his die hard fans, and everyone in between and makes a terrific study of the launch of a phenomenal career. From his very first story ever published ‘The Trail of the Apache’ through five decades of classic Western tales, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard demonstrates again and again the superb talent for language and gripping narrative that has made Leonard one of the most acclaimed and influential writers of our time.

The Complete Western Stories

No one is more evocative of the dusty, gutsy hey day of the American West than Elmore Leonard. And no story about a young writer struggling to launch his career ever matched its subject matter better than the tale behind Leonard’s Western oeuvre. In 1950, fresh out of college having written two ‘pointless’ stories, as he describes them Leonard decided he needed to pick a market, a big one, which would give him a better chance to be published while he learned to write. In choosing between crime and Westerns, the latter had an irresistible pull Leonard loved movies set in the West. As he researched deeper into settings, Arizona in the 1880s captured his imagination: the Spanish influence, the standoffs and shootouts between Apache Indians and the U.S. cavalry…
His first dozen stories sold for 2 cents a word, for $100 each. The rest is history. This first ever complete collection of Leonard’s thirty Western tales will thrill lovers of the genre, his die hard fans, and everyone in between and makes a terrific study of the launch of a phenomenal career. From his very first story ever published ‘The Trail of the Apache’ through five decades of classic Western tales, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard demonstrates again and again the superb talent for language and gripping narrative that has made Leonard one of the most acclaimed and influential writers of our time.

Moment of Vengeance and Other Stories

Before he brilliantly traversed the gritty landscapes of underworld Detroit and Miami, the incomparable Elmore Leonard wrote breathtaking adventures set in America’s nineteenth century western frontier elevating a popular genre with his now trademark twisting plots, rich characterizations, and scalpel sharp dialogue. There is a moment when obsession, rage, and destiny come together at the end of a shotgun barrel when wrongs, actual or perceived, are addressed with violence, and the awesome power of life or death rests in a trigger finger. In seven magnificent stories of sins, crimes, conscience, and savage retribution, the New York Times bestselling master carries us back to an untamed time and place where a simple transgression most often proved fatal…
and the only true justice lived in the hands of the gunman.

Blood Money and Other Stories

Before he brilliantly traversed the gritty landscapes of underworld Detroit and Miami, the incomparable Elmore Leonard wrote breathtaking adventures set in America’s nineteenth century western frontier& 8212elevating a popular genre with his now trademark twisting plots, rich characterizations, and scalpel sharp dialogue. For every story of inspiring moral courage in America’s untamed West, there’s one of greed and duplicity, of corrupted souls willingly sacrificed to a merciless deity of ill gotten gold. The New York Times bestselling Grand Master brings us seven unforgettable western tales of noble stands and cowardly compromises& 8212and battles of will more devastating than a blazing gunfight.

Trail of the Apache and Other Stories

Destiny, restlessness, and greed moved the white man west, into lands occupied for centuries by a proud and noble people: Arapahoe, Navajo, Apache, Sioux. The bitter misunderstandings and brutal clashes of cultures that resulted ultimately shaped the nation we know today. In seven classic western tales, the New York Times bestselling Grand Master re creates a world of violence, deception, vengeance, and strange beauty with the same peerless storytelling power that distinguishes his acclaimed suspense fiction.

Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing

‘These are the rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story.’ Elmore Leonard

For aspiring writers and lovers of the written word, this concise guide breaks down the writing process with simplicity and clarity. From adjectives and exclamation points to dialect and hoopetedoodle, Elmore Leonard explains what to avoid, what to aspire to, and what to do when it sounds like ‘writing’ rewrite.

Beautifully designed, filled with free flowing, elegant illustrations and specially priced, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing is the perfect writer’s and reader’s gift.

Naked Came the Manatee

In South Florida, everyone wants to get a head. But not just any head. A very famous human head severed and snugged away in a cryonic container. A head that could spark a revolution and change the course of history. Everybody wants a piece of the noggin: rotund gangster Big Joey G., a 102 year old environmentalist, hard boiled Miami reporter Britt Montero, lawyer Jake Lassiter, and a would be dictator in exile with ex president Jimmy Carter and a lovable manatee named Booger thrown in for good measure. With bodies piling up it’s anybody’s guess what will happen from one chapter to the next, as an all star line up of Florida’s finest writers take turns at taking this outrageously original novel to the limit and beyond.

The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

This seventh installment of the premier mystery anthology boasts pulse quickening stories from all reaches of the genre, selected by the world renowned mystery writer Michael Connelly. His choices include a Prohibition era tale of a scorned lover’s revenge, a Sherlock Holmes inspired mystery solved by an actor playing the famous detective onstage, stories of a woman’s near fatal search for self discovery, a bar owner’s gutsy attempt to outwit the mob, and a showdown between double crossing detectives, and a tale of murder by psychology. This year’s edition features mystery favorites Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley, James Crumley, Joyce Carol Oates, and Brendan DuBois as well as talented up and comers, for a diverse collection sure to thrill all readers. Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected and most popular of its kind. Edgar Award winner Michael Connelly has chosen a collection of stellar stories by the genre’s luminaries and by the most promising newer talents in the field. As usual, this year’s Best American Mystery Stories will delight readers with dramatic variety and unsurpassed quality. James CrumleyPete DexterBrendan DuBoisElmore LeonardWalter MosleyJoyce Carol Oates

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