Elmore Leonard was “the Dickens of Detroit,” “the poet laureate of wild assholes with revolvers,” and above all a master craftsman. Ever a writer’s writer, Leonard honed his craft meticulously over a career that spanned sixty years and nearly as many books, from westerns to era-defining crime novels like Get Shorty and Out of Sight to short story collections that still infuse the pop and mystery culture to this day. Leonard’s “Ten Rules of Writing,” published in the New York Times in 2001, has become gospel for many a writer, including such timeless gems as “[t]ry to leave out the part that readers tend to skip” and, most famously, “[i]f it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” Leonard was also renowned for his opening lines. (In his “Rules,” he warns writers to skip prologues and never to start by describing the weather.) Rightly, he’s now remembered as one of the greatest lead writers in the history of crime fiction, able to engage a reader, capture a mood, and establish a world in a few brief words.
In honor of Leonard’s birthday—he was born on October 11th, 1925—we’ve assembled 25 of his greatest opening lines. They’re ranked here (in descending order) but that’s a matter of taste, mood, and whimsy. Let these words be an inspiration, an entertainment, or just a good kick in the backside. Warning: the temptation to keep on reading Leonard’s books will be strong, and you should follow that temptation where it leads.
25. Pronto (1993)
“One evening, it was toward the end of October, Harry Arno said to the woman he’d been seeing on and off the past few years, ‘I’ve made a decision. I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before in my life.'”
24. Cuba Libre (1998)
“Tyler arrived with the horses, February eighteenth, three days after the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor.”
23. Split Images (1981)
“In the winter of 1981 a multimillionaire by the name of Robinson Daniels shot a Haitian refugee who had broken into his home in Palm Beach.”
22. Up In Honey’s Room (2007)
“Honey phoned her sister-in-law Muriel, still living in Harlan County, Kentucky, to tell her she’d left Walter Schoen, calling him Valter, and was on her way to being Honey Deal again.”
21. Riding the Rap (1995)
“Ocala Police picked up Dale Crowe Junior for weaving, two o’clock in the morning, crossing the center line and having a busted taillight.”
20. Freaky Deaky (1988)
“Chris Mankowski’s last day on the job, two in the afternoon, two hours to go, he got a call to dispose of a bomb.”
19. Road Dogs (2009)
“They put Foley and the Cuban together in the backseat of the van and took them from the Palm Beach County jail on Gun Club to Glades Correctional, the old redbrick prison at the south end of Lake Okeechobee.”
18. Touch (1987)
“Frank Sinatra, Jr., was saying, ‘I don’t have to take this,’ getting up out of the guest chair, walking out.”
17. Tishomingo Blues (2002)
“Dennis Lenahan the high diver would tell people that if you put a fifty-cent piece on the floor and looked down at it, that’s what the tank looked like from the top of that eighty-foot steel ladder.”
16. Be Cool (1999)
“They sat at one of the sidewalk tables at Swingers, on the side of the coffee shop along Beverly Boulevard: Chili Palmer with the Cobb salad and iced tea, Tommy Athens the grilled pesto chicken and a bottle of Evian.”
15. Maximum Bob (1991)
“Dale Crowe Junior told Kathy Baker, his probation officer, he didn’t see where he had done anything wrong.”
14. Gunsights (1979)
“The gentleman from Harper’s Weekly, who didn’t know mesquite beans from goat sh*t, looked up from his reference collection of back issues and said, ‘I’ve got it!'”
13. Killshot (1989)
“The Blackbird told himself he was drinking too much because he lived in this hotel and the Silver Dollar was close by, right downstairs.”
12. Mr. Paradise (2004)
“Late afternoon Chloe and Kelly were having cocktails at the Rattlesnake Club, the two seated on the far side of the dining room by themselves: Chloe talking, Kelly listening, Chloe trying to get Kelly to help entertain Anthony Paradiso, an eighty-four-year-old guy who was paying her five thousand a week to be his girlfriend.”
11. The Moonshine War (1969)
“The war began the first Saturday in June 1931, when Mr. Baylor sent a boy up to Son Martin’s place to tell him they were coming to raid his still.”
10. Glitz (1985)
“The night Vincent was shot he saw it coming.”
9. Unknown Man No. 89 (1977)
“A friend of Ryan’s said to him one time, “Yeah, but at least you don’t take any sh*t from anybody.”
8. Hombre (1961)
“At first I wasn’t sure at all where to begin.”
7. LaBrava (1983)
“‘He’s been taking pictures three years, look at the work,’ Maurice said.”
6. Bandits (1987)
“Every time they got a call from the leper hospital to pick up a body Jack Delaney would feel himself coming down with the flu or something.”
5. Gold Coast (1980)
“One day Karen DiCilia put a few observations together and realized her husband Frank was sleeping with a real estate woman in Boca.”
4. Rum Punch (1992)
“Sunday morning, Ordell took Louis to watch the white-power demonstration in downtown Palm Beach.”
3. Cat Chaser (1982)
“Moran’s first impression of Nolen Tyler: He looked like a high risk, the kind of guy who falls asleep smoking in bed.”
2. Get Shorty (1990)
“When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio’s on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off.”
1. Out of Sight (1996)
“Foley had never seen a prison where you could walk right up to the fence without getting shot.”
