Elmore Leonard died this morning at his home near Detroit. He was 87. He was an American crime writer. I stress American because his prose and his dialog are pure American in the way Mark Twain wrote American prose — how real people speak real. Leonard’s books are fascinating and hard and funny and, as a prose stylist — in his way — I would put him up against anyone. Well not up against Nabokov. But up against Joyce and Philip Roth and even Saul Bellow. I just love Elmore Leonard. And now I’m so sad.