The Birth of Cool

When Elmore Leonard died in 2013, he was the undisputed king of crime fiction. Writers and celebrities like Walker Percy, Nora Ephron, Clint Eastwood, Donald Fagen, Stephen King, Martin Amis, Ann Beattie, and George F. Will celebrated his novels. His best-selling novels—full of double-crosses, dirty-dealing, uptight stooges, smooth antiheroes, plot twists, and deadpan dialogue—inspired some of the coolest shows and films of the past 30 years. Indeed, cool is the quality most commonly attributed to Leonard. C.M. Kushins knew that when he called his new biography, timed to commemorate the centennial of the novelist's birth, Cooler Than Cool.