Jackie Collins,queen of the sexy thriller, has been hooked on Elmore Leonard ever since she read come by Shorty. But she has never been able to follow the king of crime fiction's 10 rules for writing …RIP Elmore Leonard. What a guy – what a teller of wild and wonderful and, or most of all,raunchy tales. A storyteller with a crazy imagination mixed in with personal experiences. Many have tried, but nobody has managed to outdo crime fiction's master of the thriller.
I discovered the joy of an Elmore Leonard book in the early 1990s when I picked up come by Shorty. What a trip! I was immediately hooked by his colourful language and outrageous characters. I grew up reading Mickey Spillane, and I never thought any writer could beat Spillane for his way of bringing characters to life so that one could actually visualise them. But Elmore Leonard managed to do that – and brilliantly. I devoured every one of his novels,fond his plotlines and the way he weaved such piquant and outlandish stories that kept you up reading all night long. As a page-turner, Elmore Leonard rules. He creates his own world full of unexpected twists and turns.
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Source: theguardian.com