Elmore Leonard has been inordinately successful getting his books adapted to the screen. Justified, the TV show based on the character Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens from Pronto, Riding the Rap, and the short story Fire in the Hole (the last adapted for the Justified pilot), is as good as any Leonard adaption. Seeing his characters with such incredible life breathed into him had to have spurred Leonard return to Givens with his novel Raylan (which was to be his last).
I have been on a bit of an Elmore Leonard kick here lately. His work has everything I like about country noir, but in an easily digestible, popcorn style and form. My gateway to Elmore Leonard was the great Justified (which I still need to buy on blu-ray, rewatch, and blog about extensively). I was admittedly thrown off by my first Elmore Leonard novel, Raylan. Raylan suffered from covering ground already covered by the show. But it really suffered from eastern Kentucky not being Leonard’s turf. His work is always better in Florida, I think.
