52 Pickup; Cooler Than Cool

 

While reading a biography on the late, great Elmore Leonard, I realized I hadn't actually read a lot of his books. So I checked out a collection of four and dove in. 

"52 Pickup" is the story of Harry Mitchell (Mitch) who steps out on his wife and gets caught in a nasty blackmail scheme. Rather than pay off the blackmailers, Mitch decides to turn the tables on them. Things get deadly. I don't want to spoil it by giving away too much, but it had a very satisfying ending. 

And here we are with the biography, "Cooler Than Cool". Who was cooler than Elmore Leonard in his heyday? No one, really. The man's fiction had a style all his own. He's eminently readable and his books, even the ones written half a century ago, don't feel dated. 

Leonard was an ad man in Detroit who wrote stories before he was able to make a living by writing fiction. He married young and had a bunch of kids. He struggled with alcoholism, got sober, got divorced, remarried, and continued writing. Most of the movies Hollywood made that were based on his stories weren't terrific, with a few notable exceptions (3:10 to Yuma, Jackie Brown; Get Shorty). Every few decades a new generation would be introduced to the brilliance that was Leonard. Justified was a smashing success and a high note to end his prolific career. Leonard died at the age of 87 a little over a decade ago, but his legacy lives. It was a terrific read and I will definitely be reading more of his fiction in the future.