Raylan: A Novel

“Elmore Leonard can write circles around almost anybody active in the crime novel today.”
—New York Times Book Review

With more than forty novels to his credit and still going strong, the legendary Elmore Leonard has well earned the title, “America’s greatest crime writer” (Newsweek). And U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Pronto, Riding the Rap, Fire in the Hole) is one of Leonard’s most popular creations, thanks in part to the phenomenal success of the hit TV series “Justified.” Leonard’s Raylan shines a spotlight once again on the dedicated, if somewhat trigger-happy lawman, this time in his familiar but not particularly cozy milieu of Harlan County, Kentucky, where the drug dealing Crowe brothers are branching out into the human body parts business. Suspenseful, darkly wry and riveting, and crackling with Leonard’s trademark electric dialogue, Raylan is prime Grand Master Leonard as you have always loved him and always will.

The revered New York Times bestselling author, recognized as “America’s greatest crime writer” (Newsweek), brings back U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, the mesmerizing hero of Pronto, Riding the Rap, and the hit FX series Justified.

With the closing of the Harlan County, Kentucky, coal mines, marijuana has become the biggest cash crop in the state. A hundred pounds of it can gross $300,000, but that’s chump change compared to the quarter million a human body can get you—especially when it’s sold off piece by piece.

So when Dickie and Coover Crowe, dope-dealing brothers known for sampling their own supply, decide to branch out into the body business, it’s up to U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens to stop them. But Raylan isn’t your average marshal; he’s the laconic, Stetson-wearing, fast-drawing lawman who juggles dozens of cases at a time and always shoots to kill. But by the time Raylan finds out who’s making the cuts, he’s lying naked in a bathtub, with Layla, the cool transplant nurse, about to go for his kidneys.

The bad guys are mostly gals this time around: Layla, the nurse who collects kidneys and sells them for ten grand a piece; Carol Conlan, a hard-charging coal-mine executive not above ordering a cohort to shoot point-blank a man who’s standing in her way; and Jackie Nevada, a beautiful sometime college student who can outplay anyone at the poker table and who suddenly finds herself being tracked by a handsome U.S. marshal.

Dark and droll, Raylan is pure Elmore Leonard—a page-turner filled with the sparkling dialogue and sly suspense that are the hallmarks of this modern master.

[Elmore Leonard] has created his own fictional world that we are privileged to visit now and then.... Leonard commands such a broad spectrum of fans that he might justifiably be called America’s Author. However, titles matter little; what truly counts is his ability to deliver a capital story splendidly told. Readers, rejoice! The beat goes on.” - San Diego Union-Tribune on ROAD DOGS

“A master of narrative.” - The New Yorker

“Raylan is Leonard’s best of the 21st century—good stuff from first page to last.” - Los Angeles Times Book Review

“The smarter crooks give Raylan grudging respect; his fellow lawmen grant him their highest praise: ‘You’re doin’ a job the way we like to see it done.’ The same can be said of the 86-year-old Elmore Leonard.” - Wall Street Journal

“[Leonard’s] finely honed sentences can sound as flinty/poetic as Hemingway or as hard-boiled as Raymond Chandler. His ear for the way people talk—or should—is peerless.” - Detroit News

“There is no greater writer of crime fiction than Elmore Leonard, and no one who has more resplendent energy. . . . Like pretty well every Leonard novel, Raylan is a delight.” - The Guardian (UK)

“A punchy mix of crime and Kentucky coal-mine sociology . . . It’s one of Leonard’s best thrillers in years.” - Entertainment Weekly

“With a practised ease and the craft of more than half a century of novelistic composition, Leonard works like the Picasso of crime fiction . . . Raylan is as close as it gets to creating the complete illusion of unmediated entertainment on the page.” - San Francisco Chronicle

“In addition to kinetic storytelling and spot-on dialogue, Leonard has a cool wit. . . . Characters roll from scene to scene, urged on by self-interest and greed, bumping against one another and building up steam until they’re smashing together in orgies of violence.” - New York Times Book Review

“Jazzy prose that occasionally lets go of ‘proper usage’ is Leonard’s trademark. He’s a stylist of forward motion, placing narrative acceleration above inconveniences like pronouns and helping verbs. . . . In addition to kinetic storytelling and spot-on dialogue, Leonard has a cool wit. . . . Characters roll from scene to scene, urged on by self- interest and greed, bumping against one another and building up steam until they’re smashing together in orgies of violence.” - New York Times Book Review on RAYLAN

“Raylan is Leonard’s best of the 21st century—good stuff from first page to last.” - Los Angeles Times Book Review on RAYLAN

“I haven’t seen Justified but you don’t have to have seen it either to enjoy the low-key dramatic splendors of Elmore Leonard’s new novel,Raylan. . . . With a practised ease and the craft of more than half a century of novelistic composition, Leonard works like the Picasso of crime fiction, deftly sketching in his characters by means of carefully shaped dialogue and keenly detailed physical action . . . Reading his pages is like filling up on chocolates that are good for you. Raylan is as close as it gets to creating the complete illusion of unmediated entertainment on the page.” - San Francisco Chronicle Book Review on RAYLAN

“The smarter crooks give Raylan grudging respect; his fellow lawmen grant him their highest praise: ‘You’re doin’ a job the way we like to see it done.’ The same can be said of the 86-year-old Elmore Leonard, who with Raylan has written his most entertaining book in years.” - Wall Street Journal on RAYLAN

“Leonard writes with high style, great energy, unflappable cool and a jubilant love of the game. As ever, his scorn for fussy prose is best expressed through his own superbly lean locutions.” - New York Times on ROAD DOGS

“A punchy mix of crime and Kentucky coal-mine sociology . . . It’s one of Leonard’s best thrillers in years.” - Entertainment Weekly on RAYLAN

“A superb craftsman . . . his writing is pure pleasure.” - Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Elmore Leonard can write circles around almost anybody active in the crime novel today.” - New York Times Book Review

“Elmore Leonard is our greatest crime novelist…the best in the business.” - The Washington Post