Elmore Leonard: "The Dickens of Detroit"

Early Writings
Leonard started out writing westerns and his novel Hombre was picked by the Western Writers of America as one of the best westerns of all time in 1961. In 1967 the book was adapted into a movie starring Paul Newman. But by the end of the 1960s, the market for westerns had declined, so over the next few years, Leonard began writing crime and mystery stories.