Elmore Leonard Books

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Author Elmore Leonard was born October 11, 1925 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His family moved around due to the fact that his father worked for General Motors as a site locator. They would later settle in 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. When he entered the University of Detroit in 1946, he began to take writing more seriously; he started sending off short stories he had written off to magazines and entering them into short story contests. Leonard’s first big break was when “Trail of the Apaches”, which is a story he had written was published in Argosy. Leonard was married three times, divorced twice, and had five children (all with his first wife). He had a stroke on July 29, 2013, for a time he was recovering but later died on August 20, 2013.

Order of Jack Ryan Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Big Bounce 1969 Description / Buy
2 Unknown Man #89 1977 Description / Buy

Order of Frank Ryan Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Swag / Ryan's Rules 1976 Description / Buy
2 Stick 1982 Description / Buy

Order of Chili Palmer Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Get Shorty 1990 Description / Buy
2 Be Cool 1999 Description / Buy

Order of Raylan Givens Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Pronto 1993 Description / Buy
2 Riding the Rap 1995 Description / Buy
3 Fire in the Hole 2001 Description / Buy
4 Raylan 2011 Description / Buy
5 Raylan Goes to Detroit ( By: Peter Leonard) 2018 Description / Buy

Order of Jack Foley Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Out Of Sight 1996 Description / Buy
2 Road Dogs 2009 Description / Buy

Order of Carl Webster Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Hot Kid 2005 Description / Buy
2 Up in Honey's Room 2007 Description / Buy
3 Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories 2009 Description / Buy

Order of Ordell Robbie & Louis Gara Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Switch 1978 Description / Buy
2 Rum Punch 1992 Description / Buy

Order of Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #1 1998 Description / Buy
2 Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #2 1998 Description / Buy
3 Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #3 1998 Description / Buy

Order of Elmore Leonard Standalone Novels

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Bounty Hunters 1953 Description / Buy
2 The Law at Randado 1954 Description / Buy
3 Escape from Five Shadows 1956 Description / Buy
4 Last Stand at Saber River 1959 Description / Buy
5 Hombre 1961 Description / Buy
6 The Moonshine War 1969 Description / Buy
7 Valdez Is Coming 1970 Description / Buy
8 Forty Lashes Less One 1972 Description / Buy
9 52 Pick Up 1974 Description / Buy
10 Mr Majestyk 1974 Description / Buy
11 The Hunted 1977 Description / Buy
12 Gunsights 1979 Description / Buy
13 Gold Coast 1980 Description / Buy
14 City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit 1980 Description / Buy
15 Split Images 1981 Description / Buy
16 Cat Chaser 1982 Description / Buy
17 LaBrava 1983 Description / Buy
18 Glitz 1985 Description / Buy
19 Bandits 1987 Description / Buy
20 Touch 1987 Description / Buy
21 Freaky Deaky 1988 Description / Buy
22 Killshot 1989 Description / Buy
23 Maximum Bob 1991 Description / Buy
24 Cuba Libre 1998 Description / Buy
25 Pagan Babies 2000 Description / Buy
26 Tishomingo Blues 2002 Description / Buy
27 Mr. Paradise 2004 Description / Buy
28 A Coyote's in the House 2004 Description / Buy
29 Djibouti 2010 Description / Buy
30 The Trespassers (Short Story) 2013 Description / Buy
31 Confession (Short Story) 2013 Description / Buy

Order of Elmore Leonard Short Stories/Novellas

# Read Title Published Details
1 Picket Line 2025 Description / Buy

Order of Elmore Leonard Short Story Collections

# Read Title Published Details
1 Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories 1953 Description / Buy
2 The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories 1975 Description / Buy
3 Dutch Treat 1985 Description / Buy
4 When the Women Come Out to Dance 2001 Description / Buy
5 The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard 2004 Description / Buy
6 The Complete Western Stories 2004 Description / Buy
7 Moment of Vengeance and Other Stories 2006 Description / Buy
8 Blood Money and Other Stories 2006 Description / Buy
9 Trail of the Apache and Other Stories 2007 Description / Buy
10 Charlie Martz and Other Stories 2015 Description / Buy

Order of Elmore Leonard Non-Fiction Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 Notebooks 1990 Description / Buy
2 Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing 2006 Description / Buy

Order of Akashic Noir Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 San Francisco Noir 2002 Description / Buy
2 Seattle Noir 2003 Description / Buy
3 Bronx Noir 2003 Description / Buy
4 Brooklyn Noir 2004 Description / Buy
5 Hasidic Noir (Short Story) 2004 Description / Buy
6 Brooklyn Noir 2 2005 Description / Buy
7 Chicago Noir 2005 Description / Buy
8 Dublin Noir 2005 Description / Buy
9 Manhattan Noir 2006 Description / Buy
10 Miami Noir 2006 Description / Buy
11 D.C. Noir 2006 Description / Buy
12 Baltimore Noir 2006 Description / Buy
13 Twin Cities Noir 2006 Description / Buy
14 London Noir 2006 Description / Buy
15 New Orleans Noir 2007 Description / Buy
16 Los Angeles Noir 2007 Description / Buy
17 Wall Street Noir 2007 Description / Buy
18 Havana Noir 2007 Description / Buy
19 Detroit Noir 2007 Description / Buy
20 Queens Noir 2008 Description / Buy
21 Brooklyn Noir 3: Nothing But the Truth 2008 Description / Buy
22 Toronto Noir 2008 Description / Buy
23 Las Vegas Noir 2008 Description / Buy
24 Trinidad Noir 2008 Description / Buy
25 D.C. Noir 2 2008 Description / Buy
26 Manhattan Noir 2 2008 Description / Buy
27 Paris Noir 2008 Description / Buy
28 Istanbul Noir 2008 Description / Buy
29 Boston Noir 2009 Description / Buy
30 Rome Noir 2009 Description / Buy
31 San Francisco Noir 2 2009 Description / Buy
32 Portland Noir 2009 Description / Buy
33 Delhi Noir 2009 Description / Buy
34 Phoenix Noir 2009 Description / Buy
35 Los Angeles Noir 2 2010 Description / Buy
36 Mexico City Noir 2010 Description / Buy
37 Richmond Noir 2010 Description / Buy
38 Orange County Noir 2010 Description / Buy
39 Indian Country Noir 2010 Description / Buy
40 Moscow Noir 2010 Description / Buy
41 Lone Star Noir 2010 Description / Buy
42 Philadelphia Noir 2010 Description / Buy
43 Haiti Noir 2010 Description / Buy
44 Copenhagen Noir 2010 Description / Buy
45 Pittsburgh Noir 2011 Description / Buy
46 San Diego Noir 2011 Description / Buy
47 Barcelona Noir 2011 Description / Buy
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50 Staten Island Noir 2012 Description / Buy
51 Mumbai Noir 2012 Description / Buy
52 Long Island Noir 2012 Description / Buy
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58 USA Noir 2013 Description / Buy
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62 Haiti Noir 2 2013 Description / Buy
63 Singapore Noir 2014 Description / Buy
64 Prison Noir 2014 Description / Buy
65 Tel Aviv Noir 2014 Description / Buy
66 Tehran Noir 2014 Description / Buy
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70 Providence Noir 2015 Description / Buy
71 Chicago Noir: The Classics 2015 Description / Buy
72 Memphis Noir 2015 Description / Buy
73 Zagreb Noir 2015 Description / Buy
74 Marseille Noir 2015 Description / Buy
75 Beirut Noir 2015 Description / Buy
76 New Orleans Noir: The Classics 2016 Description / Buy
77 Stockholm Noir 2016 Description / Buy
78 Brussels Noir 2016 Description / Buy
79 Mississippi Noir 2016 Description / Buy
80 St. Louis Noir 2016 Description / Buy
81 Prague Noir 2016 Description / Buy
82 San Juan Noir 2016 Description / Buy
83 Oakland Noir 2017 Description / Buy
84 Trinidad Noir: The Classics 2017 Description / Buy
85 Atlanta Noir 2017 Description / Buy
86 New Haven Noir 2017 Description / Buy
87 Montana Noir 2017 Description / Buy
88 Buenos Aires Noir 2017 Description / Buy
89 Montreal Noir 2017 Description / Buy
90 Berlin Noir 2018 Description / Buy
91 São Paulo Noir 2018 Description / Buy
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93 Lagos Noir 2018 Description / Buy
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109 Miami Noir: The Classics 2020 Description / Buy
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112 Palm Springs Noir 2021 Description / Buy
113 Paris Noir: The Suburbs 2022 Description / Buy
114 Denver Noir 2022 Description / Buy
115 South Central Noir 2022 Description / Buy
116 Cleveland Noir 2023 Description / Buy
117 East Jerusalem Noir 2023 Description / Buy
118 West Jerusalem Noir 2023 Description / Buy
119 Honolulu Noir 2024 Description / Buy
120 Sacramento Noir 2025 Description / Buy
121 Hamburg Noir 2025 Description / Buy

Elmore Leonard Anthologies

# Read Title Published Details
1 Western Roundup 1961 Description / Buy
2 Florida Stories 1993 Description / Buy
3 New Trails: Twenty-Three Original Stories 1994 Description / Buy
4 Murder For Love 1996 Description / Buy
5 Pulp Frictions: Hardboiled Stories 1996 Description / Buy
6 Naked Came the Manatee 1997 Description / Buy
7 Western Movies 1997 Description / Buy
8 The Best American Mystery Stories 1997 1997 Description / Buy
9 Murder On The Railways 2003 Description / Buy
10 The Best American Mystery Stories 2003 2003 Description / Buy
11 Mysterious Writers: The Many Facets of Mystery Writing 2010 Description / Buy
12 Books to Die For 2012 Description / Buy
13 Long Night 2014 Description / Buy
+ Click to View all Anthologies
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Leonard is mostly known for writing novels and short stories, but he also wrote some screenplays. The most notable was “Joe Kidd” (which starred Clint Eastwood), he also wrote the screenplays for some of the adaptations of his own work. He wrote a sequel to “High Noon” in 1980. The novels and stories he wrote were both from the western genre and also mysteries, crime fiction, and thrillers. He started out writing westerns, in the fifties and sixties. From the seventies on, he worked on crime and thriller stories.

ELMORE LEONARD AWARDS

Leonard was awarded a Grand Master for Lifetime Achievement from Mystery Writers of America. He also won an Edgar for his 1984 novel called “La Brava”.

ELMORE LEONARD BOOKS INTO MOVIES/TV

A lot of Leonard’s work has been adapted for the screen in some way. His western story “Three-Ten to Yuma” has been adapted twice, once in 1957 and again in 2007. “Get Shorty” was made into a movie in 1995 that starred John Travolta, Danny DeVito, and Rene Russo. “Killshot” was made into a movie that starred Diane Lane and Mickey Rourke. The television series “Justified” is based off stories (“Pronto”, “Riding the Rap”, and “Fire in the Hole”) that feature a popular character of Leonard’s named Raylan Givens. “Out of Sight” was made into a novel. As was “Rum Punch”, that was titled “Jackie Brown” and was made by Quentin Tarrantino. When Leonard read the screenplay for “Jackie Brown”, he said that it was the best he had ever read.

BEST ELMORE LEONARD BOOKS

For those readers looking to get into novels by Elmore Leonard, this section will help with that. It will go over the novels “Get Shorty” and “Be Cool”.

Get Shorty: This is the first novel in the “Chili Palmer” series and was released in the year 1990. Chili Palmer (a loan shark that has mob connections) is tired of the grind in Miami, and his friends have been dying there. He has to pursue a client that is not paying up and chases him out to Hollywood. Chili thinks that this might be a place that would be good to stay. It has dream makers, liars, hucksters, and liars; not to mention would be starlets who are beautiful (and do not wear much clothing). It seems to be a great place for someone who is an enterprising criminal who has cinematic tastes. He has the perfect idea for something that would make a killer movie. It may get him killed just getting the thing made, though.

Be Cool: This is the second novel in the “Chili Palmer” series and was released in the year 1999. The movie that Chili made after “Get Leo” bombed. This does not bode well in a town that considers you only as hot as the last film you made. He is outside again and explores an idea for the next film. He has lunch with an old associate from his time in New York, that is now an executive for a record label. The lunch starts with iced tea and ends with a mob hit. Chili finds that he needs help from Detective Darryl Holmes (one of LAPD’s finest cops); he might also be a target of Russian gangsters. There is a hit man on his trail, while he tries to put together film number three. It is going to be about Linda Moon, a real singer that has big dreams. Bigger than just being with Chicks International and covering the music of the Spice Girls. She wants away from the pimp, Raji, that manages her. The plot will be based off what happens after Chili gets her career out of Raji’s hands. He finds success in the music business, faking it with aplomb that has become his trademark. He advances his friends and manipulates his enemies.

When Does The Next Elmore Leonard book come out?

Elmore Leonard doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is Picket Line and was released on September, 30th 2025. It is the newest book in the Is It Just Me? Series.

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