I got into Leonard when Split Images and City Primeval first came out in
paper. I thought they were great. They were a crucial step in my
moving beyond strictly PI to hardboiled/noir crime novels in general
(had read some early Cain and the Parker series). Turned out that was a
good time and a bad time to get into him. Bad because not much else of
his was in print, but good because he was not yet very well known, so I
was easily able to find his back catalog in used stores. Then I stuck
with him, reading each new one as it came out. I thought his Detroit
novels were best, followed by his early Miami ones.
Slowly but surely I became less interested in his new books, reading
them more out of habit than anything else. The last I read was Rum
Punch, and that only because Jackie Brown was coming out soon. I bought
another one or two after that, but then I stopped kidding myself that I
was still interested in him, stopped buying him. But in his prime . . .
Mark
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