Elmore Leonard, Final Chapter

Elmore Leonard, 87 years, 46 novels, innumerable short stories, has departed this world for wherever good writers go.

Someone once asked us if we were the guy "who turned the whole town on to Elmore Leonard." If we were, we consider it our public service.

The first of his novels to catch our eye was "Ryan's Rules" (later re-issued under the tile "Swag"). We found it at Mike's Newsstand on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton, the magazine shop with possibly the best neon sign in Canada. It was 1978.

After that, we grabbed all the Leonard titles as soon as they came out.  Of all those books, here are the ones we would happily read for the third or fifth time: "Unknown Man No. 89," "Fifty-two Pickup." "La Brava," "Killshot," "Gold Coast," "The Switch," "Pagan Babies," "Cuba Libre," "Out of Sight" and, back where we started, "Ryan's Rules."

Those are novels. Then there is a terrific short story collection: "When the Women Come Out to Dance."

At least a dozen films have been made from Elmore Leonard books, and he undoubtedly ended up making a lot more money than he made writing truck copy for a Detroit ad agency. Even so, Leonard (whose nickname was Dutch, after a long ago baseball player) had just one extravagance: Kangol caps in all the colors.

Okay, everybody out of here, and go read some Elmore Leonard.