Get Dutch!

The biography of the author of Get Shorty, Be Cool, and Out of Sight. "I do it
because it's fun? it's the most fun thing I can think of doing" - Elmore
Leonard on the secret of his successful writing career. For six decades now,
American crime novelist Elmore "Dutch" Leonard has been entertaining readers
around the world with his unique style, gritty dialogue, and quirky
characters. Beginning as a writer of Western stories in the 1950s and moving
into the crime genre in the 1960s, Leonard has published 36 novels, and many
of these - including the recent hits Out of Sight, Get Shorty, and Jackie
Brown - have also been made into hit movies. Through it all, Leonard has won
legions of crime fiction fans who can't get enough of his dialogue-driven
narratives and intricate plots. Get Dutch! A Biography of Elmore Leonard is
the first full-length biography of Leonard in over a decade. Author Paul
Challen has mined a number of key sources in the search to uncover the story
of this remarkable writer, including in-depth interviews with Leonard himself,
his personal research assistant, the screenwriter responsible for bringing Out
of Sight and Get Shorty to the big screen, academics who have studied Leonard
and his place in the literary world, and with crime fiction experts who have
analyzed the impact of Leonard's novels on the reading public. Get Dutch!
presents the life of Leonard from the perspective of a long-time fan, and
gives the reader an up-to-date look at how this genre-defying author went from
advertising copywriter to best-selling novelist over the course of his long
career.