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One of the great pleasures of pulp fiction is jogging along with an author over decades - as you both grow older. When did I first come across Elmore Leonard? Unknowingly as a 20-year-old (he was 30ish) when I saw the movies The Tall-T (starring lantern-jawed Randolph Scott) and 3:10 to Yuma (starring furrow-browed Van Heflin). Both are based on Leonard short stories and are classics of the “psychological western” - a genre that was big in the 1950s. I didn't read the small print on the credits, any more than on the Paul Newman-starring Hombre. If he had his thumbprint on just those three films Leonard would deserve an honoured niche in male-action narrative.

The first Leonard novels I read were the mid-1980s La Brava and Stick, two laconic Floridean thrillers that made Miami Vice (big at the time) look paltry. Since then, I've been brand-loyal, saving the titles up for long-haul flights. So prolific is “Dutch” (as fans call him), that one rarely has to fly without his company. With three unread Leonards, I'd even take on T5.

If I had to categorise, I'd put his Detroit novels top (e.g. Fifty-two Pickup - another great movie, starring Roy Scheider), then the Florida novels, and last the Hollywood stuff (e.g. Get Shorty - his revenge novel on Dustin Hoffman). But Leonard has cast his scenery as far afield as Rwanda (Pagan Babies). His oddest production is Touch - an allegory about his alcoholism, and recovery from it. Latterly, he has returned to the era of his childhood, the Depression-hit 1930s (see The Hot Kid).

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Like Hemingway, Leonard never uses a word where he doesn't have to. And not even then, sometimes. He's still writing, which is wonderful. They call him the Dickens of Detroit. He's that and more.

One to read: Fifty-two Pickup (1974)

John Sutherland is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. In 2004 his book Stephen Spender: The Authorized Biography was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Award and in 2005 he was Chair of Judges for the Booker Prize. Last year he published a memoir, The Boy Who Loved Books, and a study of bestsellers.

Elmore Leonard interview with the British Film Institute

Audio: Interviews with Elmore Leonard

Video: Elmore Leonard in World Class Detroiters

Video: Elmore Leonard at the movies

Film adaptations of Elmore Leonard’s books

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