Unlike most of Elmore Leonard's books, I really wish there was more to this story. As Paul Challen writes in the introduction, biography and the right balance between fandom and serious study is hard. While he never makes an bones about being a fanboy of Elmore Leonard, at times I wondered if this was not equal parts fan letter from Challen, and college senior thesis. I learned more about one of my favorites in the genre, but the over all impression I got was that of a biography written by reading other biographies with some limited access to the subject and the author's personal opinions sprinkled in for good measure. If you are a Elmore Leonard superfan, by all means read away. A fan (like me, who has read several books by Leonard), you might save your time. I won't outright trash this book because there are very few biographies of Elmore Leonard out there for a soul to pick up, but I won't recommend it to many folks either.
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