Elmore Leonard: Bandits

Amis:Well, why isn’t there a Martin Amis Day? Because January 16, 1998, was Elmore Leonard Day in the state of Michigan, and it seems that here, in Los Angeles, it’s been Elmore Leonard Day for the last decade. [Laughter]

[Applause]

Editor’s note:Martin Amis is the author of many novels – including Money: A Suicide Note; London Fields; and Night Train – and many works of nonfiction, including a collection of essays and criticism, The War Against Cliché, in which may be found other interesting observations on the work of Elmore Leonard.

Elmore Leonardhas written more than three dozen books during his highly successful writing career, including the national bestsellers Tishomingo Blues , Pagan Babies , and Be Cool . Many of his novels have been made into movies, including Get Shorty , Out of Sight , Valdez Is Coming , and Rum Punch (as Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown ). He has been named Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America and lives in Bloomfield Village, Michigan, with his wife.

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“The hottest thriller writer in the U.S.”

Time

“Razor-sharp characterizations, wonderful dialogue, quirky humor… He can render a human being’s entire life in a few sentences of wardrobe description… Elmore Leonard proves he has few peers in unfolding this sort of story.”

Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Leonard is one of the crime genre’s great writers.”

Dallas Morning News

“First-rate… crackles with suspense and intrigue… Leonard’s dialogue flourishes throughout… The Hunted shows that Leonard has deserved all the praise he has received. He deserved it years ago.”

Bergen Record

“Leonard is the best in the business: His dialogue snaps, his characters are more alive than most of the people you meet on the street, and his twisting plots always resolve themselves with a no-nonsense plausibility.”

Newsday

“Does Elmore Leonard ever tire of hearing how fine a novelist he is? How remarkably consistent?… If he does, he might want to skip this valentine… The reader often finds himself laughing out loud at how ingeniously and how naturally the writer fits all the pieces together. As for dull patches, well, there is more down time in a class of Ritalin-dosed kindergartners than in any Leonard novel… If there is anything we have come to expect in a Leonard novel, it is to expect anything… If Leonard had marketed Yugos, we’d all be driving one today.”

Orange County Register

“[Readers] should add the work of Elmore Leonard to their not-to-be-missed book lists. His tone-gritty, deadpan, matter-of-fact, and quietly poetic-makes his tales of violence and retribution both inimitable and addictive.”

Washington Post Book World

“The debate over who’s the all-time king of the whack job crime novelists just ended. Living or dead, Elmore Leonard tops ’em all.”

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

“Nobody but nobody on the current scene can match his ability to serve up violence so light-handedly, with so supremely deadpan a flourish.” Detroit News

“Leonard is a writer, which is like saying Michael Jordan is a basketball player. He is a master of a kind of tabloid literature: quick, knowing, filled with perfectly observed talk, and always with at least one dead body somewhere on the premises.”

New York Daily News

“The hallmark of a Leonard novel is the dialogue-crackling, vivid, full of menace, bluster, heat, and frustration. The stuff begs to be read out loud.”

Orlando Sentinel

“When Mr. Leonard is observing, satirizing, plotting, working up suspense, thickening the air with menace, discharging it in lightning flashes of violence, exposing the black holes behind the parts people play-when he tends to business, he gives us as much serious fun per word as anyone around.”

New York Times Book Review

“[With] his street-smart dialogue and funny backroom characters, he’s a sage poet of crime.”

Houston Chronicle