Elmore Leonard Modern Classics

The great Elmore Leonard, the most influential crime writer of the second half of the 20th century, is getting the Penguin Modern Classics treatment, with several of his novels and westerns released in these lovely new editions in the coming months.

My advice? Start with Rum Punch, which was adapted by Quentin Tarantino into the brilliant movie Jackie Brown.

It contains passages like this, which is classic Elmore:

“He sat in the living room in the dark, an expert at waiting, a nineteen-year veteran of it, waiting for people who failed to appear, missed court dates because they forgot or didn’t care, and took off. Nineteen years of losers, repeat offenders in and out of the system. Another one, that’s all Louis was, slipping back into the life.”

A one-of-a-kind chronicler of lowlifes and grifters, bail bondsmen and arms traffickers, sheriffs and criminals.