Elmore Leonard

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....

With the closing of the Harlan County, Kentucky coalmines, marijuana has become the biggest cash crop in the state....

Lewd, lecherous, law-bending Florida jurist Judge Robert "Maximum Bob" Gibbs has been judged guilty by a grudge-bearing malefactor and sentenced to death - by alligator, if necessary....

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....

World-class gentleman felon Jack Foley is busting out of Florida's Glades Prison when he runs head on into a shotgun-wielding Karen Sisco....

The sequel to Chili Palmer's hit movie Get Leo tanked and now Chili's itching for a comeback....

He used to be on the bomb squad, but it's not until he transfers out that Chris Mankowski really begins juggling with dynamite....

The feds want Miami bookmaker Harry Arno to squeal on his wiseguy boss....

Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara hit it off in prison, where they were both doing time for grand theft auto....

War in Cuba isn't Ben Tyler's concern. Still, sailing mares and guns into Havana harbor in 1898 may not be the smartest thing he ever did....

Set in Arizona mining country, Hombre is the tale of a white man raised by Indians, who must come to the aid of people who hate him when their stagecoach is attacked by outlaws....

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....

Carl Webster, the hot kid of the marshals service, is polite, respects his elders, and can shoot a man driving away in an Essex at 400 yards....

After serving time for armed robbery, Ernest "Stick" Stickley is back on the outside and trying to stay legit. But it's tough staying straight in a crooked town....

Things are going along okay with Dennis' gig at the Tishomingo Lodge & Casino in Tunica, Mississippi, "the Casino Capital of the South"....

In this first collection of short pieces, including two novella-length works, since his western anthology Tonto Woman, Leonard demonstrates the superb characterization, dead-on dialogue, vivid atmosphere, and driving plotting that have made him a household name....

Clement Mansell knows how easy it is to get away with murder. The crazed killer is already back on the Detroit streets and feeling invincible enough to execute a crooked Motown judge....

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....

Working in a New Orleans funeral home isn't 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....

Dual Meaders, Doc Taulbee, and their gang of city slickers set out to steal thousands of dollars worth of homemade Kentucky Whiskey....