Your Favorite Elmore Leonard novel

A few weeks ago, I said I had never read a Bill Pronzini novel and got some fabulous recommendations and read a great book.

Now I have read only one Elmore Leonard book (hangs head in shame), so tell me what your favorite book of his is and I will read that one.

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By DWIGHT GARNER

Published: May 27, 2007

LEONARD’S FINAL FOUR: What’s Elmore Leonard’s best novel? In the right bar, that question could start a rumble. But Mark Reiter tackles it with elegance and wit in his recent book “The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything,” which he wrote with Richard Sandomir and Nigel Holmes. According to Reiter, the novels that make it to Leonard’s final four are “Hombre” (1961), “Swag”(1976), “LaBrava” (1983) and “Killshot” (1989). It’s hard to quibble with that list. “LaBrava” got there by defeating, in the second round,“Get Shorty.” (Reiter calls this “an ironic matchup, since Leonard wrote ‘Get Shorty’ to get back at Dustin Hoffman for torturing him during the writing of the ‘LaBrava’ screenplay.”) The final matchup, in Reiter’s bracket, is between “Swag” and “Killshot.” I’ll let Reiter describe which book wins: “ ‘Swag’ is great because you root for the crooks. ‘Killshot’ goes it one better with Leonard’s best-ever opening chapter, a cast of kinky characters who are both menacing and sympathetic, and the rarity of a happily married couple as the novel’s action heroes. Even the blunt title is perfect.” Leonard’s new novel, “Up in Honey’s Room,” is at No. 15.