Simon Lewis: Comrade Hack

Fifty Two Pick Up, Elmore Leonard, 1974

‘He could not get used to going to the girl’s apartment.’

Three Detroit villains try to blackmail Harry Stanton over his affair. But they’ve picked the wrong guy: tough factory owner Harry plays them off against each other – with the help of his angry wife.

Leonard has written dozens of amazing crime novels, an astonishing achievement. Hard to pick one, really, but I like this cause it’s the first I read, and cause the story is really focused. Leonard started off writing pulp westerns and he keeps those tropes, just shifts cast and locale – this book, for example, uses the western template of a group of outlaws threatening a homesteader who has to take them out without recourse to the law. Others feature bounty hunters, hitmen and the like – all acutely drawn.

Interesting to note that he’s one of those writers (like, say, JG Ballard), who’s getting more influential as time goes on. He’s proved way ahead of the curve of contemporary taste – he was writing snappy crim dialogue when Tarrantino was in shorts and creating a multi-racial cast way before the Wire. His pared down, conversational style has become the model everyone emulates – if you’re a writer, look for his laconic ‘ten rules of writing (a sample couple – ‘don’t start with the weather’; ‘leave out the bits people skip’).