Elmore Leonard dies aged 87 A former advertising man, who started out writing Westerns, Leonard had a gift for snappy dialogue and his longtime researcher Gregg Sutter said that until recently he was working on his 46th novel, a tale called Blue Dreams, which involves a rogue Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. In September 2012, he spoke of his delight at being awarded The National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Leonard, who lived on the outskirts of Detroit, had said: "I was very surprised. I didn't ever count on winning this kind of an award. I've won a lot of awards, but not like this one. Martin Amis, who presented him with the award last November in New York, said: "Leonard has a faultless ear. His books have incredible dialogue and incredible structure. You read page after page and there's no sense of false quantities, in the sense of repetition. Leonard's all-time favourite film adaptation was the 1997 Quentin Tarantino film, Jackie Brown, which was based on the novel Rum Punch. New Orleans-born Leonard, known as 'Dutch' to his friends, added: "People always say, 'Where do you get (your characters') words?', and I say, 'Can't you remember people talking or think up people talking in your head?' That's all it is. I don't know why that seems such a wonder to people.