C.M. ‘Chad’ Kushins’ Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Times of Elmore Leonard draws heavily on the work of earlier biographers—David Geherin, Paul Challen, James Devlin, Charles Rzepka, and myself. My contributions include the extensive factual chronology and book-by-book research notes published in Elmore Leonard: The Classic Crime Novels: A Library of America Boxed Set, for which I served as editor—part of the framework of Cooler Than Cool.

Kushins was the first to write a cradle-to-grave biography with full access to the Leonard archives, the richest source material available to a biographer. He drew on a wide range of accounts from people who knew or worked with Dutch, and had unprecedented access to his children, grandchildren, and first wife Beverly. The result is a family-sponsored narrative told from multiple family points of view.

My memoir, I’d Kill to Have Your Job: Getting the Goods for Elmore Leonard, will fill in some of the gaps in Chad’s book and offer a broader, research-driven view. I have an extensive archive of my own—not nearly as comprehensive as the official Elmore Leonard archive—but built over three decades as Dutch’s researcher. It includes documents, audio, video, and a large collection of location photos, all of which inform my book.

Cooler Than Cool is a worthwhile addition to Elmore Leonard scholarship but not the last word.
More to come.

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To Celebrate Elmore Leonard at 100—A Researcher’s Memoir

I’d Kill to Have Your Job:
Getting the Goods for Elmore Leonard

by Gregg Sutter

From the Book’s Introduction

Elmore Leonard was the guest of honor at Bouchercon 2000, the world’s mystery convention in Denver. During his speech, he mentioned that his researcher was in the audience, briefly putting me in the spotlight.

After the speech, women librarian types approached me in the lobby, expressing envy for my job. They asked questions like, “How did you get your job?” and “How do I get a job like yours?” Then, a woman rushed up and blurted out, “I’d kill to have your job,” to which I replied, “That means you’ll have to kill me!” Though unsettling, I understood her hyperbolic expression. It filled me with pride as I slowly backed away. That woman at Bouchercon inspired the title for this book.

How do you get a job like mine? Aside from serendipity? In my case, a plan to meet Elmore Leonard linked me to his work and world forever.

I’d Kill to Have Your Job: Getting the Goods for Elmore Leonard chronicles my three-decade journey through select vignettes from my research on Dutch’s novels, screenplays, and more. It’s not a traditional biography or tell-all; instead, I focus on what’s crucial and memorable, following Dutch’s advice from his Ten Rules of Writing: I “leave out the parts readers tend to skip.”

Dutch did a lot of research himself throughout his long writing career. But later, spending time in the library collecting data became a major distraction. He wanted information to materialize on his desk as if by magic so it didn’t interrupt his flow. When I arrived on the scene, I perform the abracadabra to make that happen. We fell into sync.

Field trips with Dutch were my most cherished memories from my time with him – whether visiting Civil War battlefields, women’s prisons, homicide squad rooms, or the canals of Venice, California. It thrilled me to be part of his creative process.

I’d Kill to Have Your Job offers insight into my working relationship and enduring friendship with Dutch. In any event, I hope you get a sense of the joy and good fortune I’ve experienced as Elmore Leonard’s researcher. It’s a job worth killing for, but as the song goes, only in fiction.

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The Hawksbill Gang

In 1975, John Foreman—Paul Newman’s producing partner—was headed to Morocco to produce The Man Who Would Be King with Sean Connery and Michael Caine. Foreman liked the dialogue in Hombre and asked Elmore Leonard if he had something for the two stars. Dutch wrote six pages overnight, a treatment he called The Hawksbill Gang, and sent it in care of the airline in New York.

Foreman called from the airport: “Great story. Expand it.” Dutch wrote a 50-page treatment and flew to Morocco to pitch it in person. Dutch went and ended up hanging around the set and hotel until Connery and Caine were available. After several days, he sat down with them and they expressed their serious interest. Dutch went home thinking it was a done deal and he was going to write the screenplay. But then Foreman called and said they changed their mind because all the scenes in England would have been prohibitively expensive to film because of that country’s tax laws.

Dutch asked his publisher, Delacorte, if they saw a book in the treatment and they said they did not.

The Hawksbill Gang is set in 1938, in what Dutch describes as Dickensian England—grimy industrial towns, petty crooks, pawn shops, and public houses filled with hustlers and schemers. It’s a classic Leonard caper: sharp, funny, and wicked. It follows a ragtag outfit led by Tony Smudgeon, the good-natured nephew of Lord Smudgeon, aka the Duke—a crooked British aristocrat who’s stashed a fortune in a Spanish bank—just as the city falls under siege by the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War.

With time running out, the Duke sends Tony to retrieve the money, teaming him up with two questionable allies: Harry Mold, a smooth-talking operator with questionable credentials, and Billy Hawksbill, a loudmouthed scrapper with strong opinions and a wild streak.

The trio poses as British military observers to gain access to the war zone. What begins as a quick recovery job turns into a dangerous run through shifting frontlines, corrupt officials, and revolutionaries with their own agendas. The Duke doesn’t trust his nephew, so he dispatches two hired goons to keep tabs—and, if necessary, take control.

After a series of double-crosses, detours, and stolen transport, the Hawksbill Gang ends up in North Africa with the money—one step ahead of the men sent to stop them.

The Hawksbill Gang is another great example of Dutch’s spontaneous, improvisational creativity—his strength as a writer, and the kind of storytelling that set him apart.

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From Picket Line to Mr. Majestyk

Originally, Dutch wrote the screenplay for Mr. Majestyk with Clint Eastwood in mind. Eastwood told Dutch that he needed a story that was “something like Dirty Harry [1971] only different.” It could be anything, as long as his character had a big gun. Clint didn’t have a big enough piece of the wildly successful Dirty Harry and wanted something he could fully own—something to produce through his company, Malpaso. So Dutch presented the idea for Mr. Majestyk, and Eastwood told him to “work it up.” Dutch was certain Eastwood would buy it, but he passed and did High Plains Drifter instead.

Dutch pitched Eastwood, using Picket Line as his framework—its setting, tone, and characters supplied the foundation for what became Mr. Majestyk. Once producer Walter Mirisch entered the picture, he signed Charles Bronson to star, and Dutch carried the Picket Line DNA into the Bronson version.

Dutch had drawn on earlier work before, and Picket Line wasn’t the first time he repurposed material from a shelved project. In 1961, he wrote “Only Good Ones” for an anthology called Western Roundup. Years later, that story became the first chapter of Valdez Is Coming.

Even though Mr. Majestyk is a completely different kind of story from Picket Line, the melon harvest by migratory fruit pickers provided the spine. Here’s a breakdown of a few key elements from Picket Line that ended up in Mr. Majestyk.

The opening in both works is a scene at a gas station where migrants are denied access to a bathroom—they’re told the facilities are broken. In Picket Line, a character named Chino gets tough with the attendant, who ultimately relents and lets the migrants use the toilet. In Mr. Majestyk, it’s Vincent who steps in. It’s a small but telling act of defiance—a classic Elmore Leonard reaction to injustice.

The woman at the center of that scene is Nancy Chavez. In Picket Line, she’s a strong character immersed in the farm worker struggle, whose role would have been broadened had Dutch progressed beyond Act One. In Mr. Majestyk, she has the same backstory, more or less, but her role is reduced to supporting the film’s vastly different plot. She talks to Vincent about past strikes and organizing farm workers, and that informs her character—but goes no further.

The labor conflict carries over in Mr. Majestyk, though not in the form of a strike or picket line. Vincent Majestyk is a small grower with 130 acres of melons and treats his workers with dignity. In Picket Line, Stanzik Farms is a large, uncaring company that treats migrants with contempt. In Mr. Majestyk, as Vincent brings in a picking crew, one is already in the fields—a scab crew, brought in by the grower. Vincent assaults the gun-wielding henchman, Bobby Kopas, and lands in jail—a sharp turn that kicks the story into motion.

What gets lost in the shift from source to screenplay is tone and intent. Picket Line focused on how the strikers moved together, how they clashed with local law enforcement, how they were blocked, searched, and humiliated as they tried to reach the melon fields. Mr. Majestyk lifts these elements and recasts them as set pieces—amped up, simplified, and shaped to serve Bronson’s brand of stoic violence.

Dutch didn’t like the result. He found Bronson predictable and didn’t like his delivery. Director Richard Fleischer turned the bad guys into cartoons—especially Al Lettieri as Frank Renda. “He was so over-the-top evil,” Dutch said.

For everything Mr. Majestyk was—and wasn’t—it couldn’t have existed without Picket Line. If only Dutch had finished it as a novel in 1971. It would’ve landed closer to the protest fiction and political films of the era. The issues were timely: migrant labor, racial tension, economic exploitation. The backdrop of melon picking was integral to both stories, but Mr. Majestyk went nowhere near the social themes Picket Line was built around. Maybe someday someone will pick up Picket Line and, using the completed Act One and Dutch’s extensive notes, complete his vision.

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Picket Line: The Research

In the previous post, I talked about why Picket Line is not a novella. This time, I want to focus on the research that went into this developing novel. Despite my bemusement at how it’s being marketed, Picket Line is a fine piece of writing, and I’m glad people will finally have a chance to read it in the Fall.

When Dutch wrote Picket Line, he was in his post-Western, pre-Crime Fiction period (1969–1974), chasing screenwriting jobs. His agent, H. N. Swanson thought he could have made a career out of the screen trade, and he wasn’t wrong. But Dutch’s first love was novel writing. So he didn’t develop Picket Line as a screenplay first but conceived it as Act One of a novel. If a deal was forthcoming, he’d finish the book.

To prepare for Picket Line, Dutch immersed himself in the gritty realities of migratory farm labor and the labor strikes that defined the era of the late Sixties and early Seventies. Act One of Picket Line describes Mexican American melon pickers caught in the opening moves of a labor strike in South Texas. The narrative builds through tense encounters between strikers and law enforcement, with personal rivalries and moral conflicts rising as the threat of violence looms.

Dutch’s research grounded Picket Line in reality. His primary source for crafting Vincent Mora—a former priest stepping back into the fray—emerges directly from Frank Kostyu’s Shadows in the Valley: The Story of One Man’s Struggle for Justice. Kostyu’s book chronicles the real-life work of Ed Krueger, a minister fighting for justice in the Rio Grande Valley. Dutch’s Picket Line notes indicate that Mora would have emerged as the central character in Act Two; a man of conscience drawn back into activism and posing a real threat to the growers. Dutch had the whole novel mapped out—his plan was to take Mora deeper into the conflict, escalating the stakes with each chapter.

Dutch planned to begin Act Two with his version of the International Bridge incident in Roma, Texas. On October 24, 1966, twelve striking farmworkers blockaded the bridge to stop growers from bringing in strikebreakers from Mexico. They were arrested, and made national headlines. This scene would be followed by a major protest march and an inevitable confrontation.

Supporting his treatment was a bibliography full of field reporting and sociological inquiry. John Gregory Dunne’s Delano: The Story of the California Grape Strike captured the human cost and political stakes of the 1965–1970 Delano Grape Strike. The California movement set the template for grassroots farmworker resistance—uniting Filipino and Mexican American laborers under a call for justice and dignity.

Julian Samora’s La Raza: Forgotten Americans explored the social stratification of Mexican Americans in the Southwest—their marginalization in politics, religion, and labor. Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and His Family gave Leonard intimate details of family life in a peasant household. ¡Basta! The Tale of Our Struggle and Merchants of Labor revealed the bureaucratic and human toll of the Bracero Program, a temporary labor initiative between the United States and Mexico that allowed Mexican workers to be employed in the U.S. agricultural and railroad industries. These books show how migrant labor was systemically manipulated.

At the time, César Chávez was in the news almost daily, and Dutch paid close attention to his organizing methods. He also explored the broader world of community activism, particularly the grassroots strategies promoted by Saul Alinsky. Dutch read Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals and a lengthy interview with him that appeared in Ramparts magazine, which had become essential reading in the late 1960s for its coverage of civil rights and labor struggles.

What emerges from all this is a determined attempt to dramatize social history through fiction. But Picket Line is not polemical—it’s not trying to make a statement. Dutch just did what he always did: he built a world filled with credible characters who moved, talked, and acted in a world shaped by hard truths.

And then he stopped.

Act One ends just as the pot begins to boil. There’s no resolution, just momentum. What makes Picket Line so frustrating—and so fascinating—is that we never got the rest. We see the setup, the themes, the hero about to step forward. But Acts Two and Three were never written. Dutch had the whole novel mapped out in great detail, with plans to push Mora deeper into the conflict—culminating in a confrontation that would shake both sides.

What remains in Act One of Picket Line is pure Elmore Leonard—deeply informed by meticulous research—the foundation of a novel that could have been great.

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Picket Line - Act One of a Novel

Mariner Books has announced the publication of Picket Line, written in 1970, scheduled for release on September 30, 2025. They are calling it a major release of a lost novella by Elmore Leonard. I must correct this marketing misnomer before it’s too late. Picket Line is not major, it’s not lost, and most importantly, it’s not a novella. It’s the first act and de facto treatment for a motion picture that never got made—but would live on in another form.

Is Picket Line worth reading? If you’re an Elmore Leonard fan, or just enjoy good writing—hell yes.

A novella is either a short novel or a long short story with a beginning, middle, and end. Act One of Picket Line sets the table with characters and hints at the larger story. It ends soft—not with a satisfying conclusion but like the first movement of a symphony: it introduces ideas and themes, with the actual payoff to come.

Of course, Dutch was familiar with the form novella. He had written long short stories in his Western days that qualify, and would write two excellent novellas thirty years later: Tenkiller and Fire in the Hole—the pilot episode of Justified. But it’s ludicrous to think Dutch would write a novella in 1970. He was “commercially minded” at all times and not interested in any writing project other than a complete novel and/or an original screenplay. He wrote the first act of a novel called Picket Line as a treatment, with the full intention of completing it if the opportunity presented itself. It didn’t. Here’s the story.

Dutch was always strapped for cash during this period (1969–1974) and aimed his sights on movie deals, following the guidance of his legendary agent H. N. “Swanie” Swanson. Swanie appreciated that Dutch was willing to tailor his work to the movie marketplace. So when Swanie told him that Columbia producers Howard Jaffe and Edward Lewis were looking for a “migratory fruitpicker story,” Dutch went to work on it. Swanie suggested a screenplay first, and maybe later a novelization (the designation for a novel written after a screenplay). Dutch chose to write the first act of a novel called Picket Line as a treatment.

At the same time, Dutch was pitching Jesus Saves—a story set in a corner of northern Georgia where the New South was window dressing for Old South Bible thumpers. By August, Howard Jaffe passed on Picket Line, telling Swanie he wouldn’t be able to turn it into “his kind of story”—an oft-repeated phrase Dutch would hear many more times in Hollywood. Then in September, producers Gabriel Katzka and Ed Scherick of Palomar Studios expressed interest in the property and said they wanted to do it in a documentary style.

Producers Ira Steiner and Aaron Rosenberg also made a rejected lowball offer but said they were willing to take a look at the finished novel. So Swanie sent Picket Line “out to the town.” He said of the 112 pages that Dutch had written: “In spite of the fact that two books on the same subject have been bought for pictures, I think you should finish it up as a book.” Swanie explained, “A year or two ago, it was not too difficult to arrange with a producer to put some money up while a writer was developing a subject [but] the industry is trying to reduce its risks by seeing a complete piece of work before they make any investment.” The thought now was shooting Picket Line as a two-hour television film with a writer budget of about $25,000—but there was little hope of a quick deal.

Meanwhile, Dutch and Swanie’s attention turned elsewhere. On February 12, 1971, Swanie closed a deal on a new project, Sinola, for producer Sidney Beckerman, which would put his share of $25,000 in Dutch’s pocket sooner rather than later.

Dutch soon was deep into writing the Sinola screenplay. He was commuting from Detroit to Hollywood, going home for the weekend and flying back on Monday. Universal and Beckerman were freaking out about the added expense. Picket Line by now was on the shelf gathering a little dust.

But wait—there’s yet another project in the works called American Flag, about a gold mine in 1910 with a miner character up against the big mining company. Steve McQueen was announced as attached, but ultimately dropped out as he was busy shooting The Getaway for Sam Peckinpah and had no time to discuss American Flag script changes.

There were other projects discussed around this time: Jerry Gershwin wanted Dutch to adapt James M. Cain’s Past All Dishonor and/or The Violent Ones by E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame. Then Walter Mirisch entered the picture and sought out the veteran Detroit ad man, Elmore Leonard, to adapt the ultimate Detroit automotive novel, Arthur Hailey’s Wheels, which had just come out in 1971. But another book about the auto industry—Harold Robbins’ The Betsy, published in the same year—sold first and Mirisch lost interest. Dutch was not particularly keen on the assignment anyway.

Sinola was shot as Joe Kidd, and despite the studio interference in the story, Clint Eastwood was looking for something new from Dutch for his production company, Malpaso.

So Dutch pulls the first act of Picket Line off the shelf and “hangs it up for parts” and writes what would become Mr. Majestyk. Eastwood didn’t like it and passed. Actually, he was more interested in another project, High Plains Drifter.

Dutch completed the screenplay for Mr. Majestyk, which now starred Charles Bronson. He wrote the novelization in tandem with his screenplay to coincide with the release of the movie in July 1974. Thus, the first and only act of Picket Line was absorbed in part into the screenplay and novelization of Mr. Majestyk.

Conclusion: Picket Line was shelved, not lost. It was the first act of a novel, not a novella. Leonard wrote it with the intent to finish if a deal came through—which it didn’t. That’s the story. It deserves to be read and understood on those terms.

Shortly after Dutch’s death, I informed the Elmore Leonard Estate of the existence of Picket Line and that it would make an excellent addition to a collection of Dutch’s unpublished stories, which I had assembled along with notes as to why each story was rejected or not published.

In 2015, Mariner put out Charlie Martz and Other Stories—without my notes, and without Picket Line. Dutch never wanted any of these works to be published without explanatory text… or frankly, at all. However, had Picket Line been in the collection, it could have been properly presented.

As I said at the top, Picket Line is well worth reading. Unfortunately, because of the misidentification, readers may be bewildered by the ending of the so-called novella, instead of thinking about the novel that might have been.

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That’s What It’s All About

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The Elmore Leonard Box Set

The Library of America presents the definitive edition of an American master of crime fiction: twelve modern classics in a deluxe three-volume collector’s boxed set. Including City Primeval and Rum Punch, this is Elmore Leonard at his unbeatable best.

Four Novels of the 1970s

Four Novels of the 1970s

(Library of America volume #255)

Fifty-Two Pickup

Swag

Unknown Man No. 89

The Switch

Learn more

Four Novels of the 1980s

Four Novels of the 1980s

(Library of America volume #267)

City Primeval

LaBrava

Glitz

Freaky Deaky

Learn more

Four Later Novels

Four Later Novels

(Library of America volume #280)

Get Shorty

Rum Punch

Out of Sight

Tishomingo Blues

Learn more

Gregg Sutter

Gregg Sutter on Elmore Leonard’s Dialogue-Driven Crime Novels

A look into how Leonard crafted his unforgettable characters and trademark voice—with insights from his longtime researcher.

Read the interview

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Una commedia americana (An American Comedy)

Una commedia americana by Giulio Segato

Google Translation:

One of the favorite expressions by critics and reviewers who have a text by Leonard is the “Dickens of Detroit”. An epithet whose origin is often traced back to J. D. Reed, author of an article published in “Time” and entitled A Dickens From Detroit. In fact, the title was decided by an editor in chief of the American magazine who was not very familiar with Leonard’s novels. It is not surprising, therefore, that the expression adopted, however suggestive and captivating, is rather misleading. In the nineteenth century, however, there is another writer who seems to me more reasonable to approach Leonard, although he belongs to a different literary tradition: Honoré de Balzac with his Comédie humaine. Balzac, through all the works that go to form the Comédie, intended to compose a mosaic of the French society of his time, illustrating all the fi gures, even the most marginal, and showing man and woman in all moral transformations. of their character. This summary, although brief, could also accurately describe Leonard’s work. It is pacific that there are many differences, as is inevitable in proposing the suggestion of a comparison between authors whose respective context is radically different, above all in historical terms. Yet even the forty-four novels published by Leonard can be read as one great narrative - an American comedy! - who wants to follow the tangle of existences along the streets of the US province, through the eyes of disoriented detectives and immature and ridiculous killers. This is because, as in Balzac, every Leonard novel is plural, that is, it contains multiple stories that intertwine and recur in characters that seem to disappear into thin air and then re-emerge after many years.

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Elmore Leonard in Hollywood Tour

Presenting a new literary bus adventure…

Debuts November 10, 2018

You know the work (Get Shorty, 52 Pick-Up, Jackie Brown, 3:10 To Yuma). Now get to know the man.

For 33 years, Gregg Sutter was author Elmore Leonard’s loyal researcher and assistant (“Elmore’s Legs” - The New Yorker), gathering the reference material and rich visual descriptions that made you feel like you were right there inside Elmore’s stories and their film adaptations.

And this November on a brand new bus adventure, Gregg Sutter is taking us back in time to tell the unusual story of Elmore Leonard in Hollywood, a revealing portrait of a commuting screenwriter who took big paychecks and constant indignities with head held high, because it meant he could go home to Detroit and write his books.

Then suddenly, with Get Shorty, Hollywood finally “got” Elmore, and Gregg Sutter was right there to tell you what it felt like. Rich with oddball characters, cool locales and creative insights you won’t find anywhere else, this tour is a must for Elmore Leonard super-fans or folks who just love Get Shorty and Jackie Brown.

The cast includes: Randolph Scott, Felicia Farr, Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Paul Newman, Martin Ritt, Ryan O’Neal, Burt Lancaster, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Menahem Golan, Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, Bruce Willis, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, John Travolta, Danny Devito, George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Robert Deniro, James Woods, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton and Dennis Farina.

To learn more about this debut excursion, click here

Book A Seat on Elmore Leonard in Hollywood

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The Official
Elmore Leonard Website

Archives

Novels

Stories

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New Elmore Leonard Biography

To Celebrate Elmore Leonard at 100—A Researcher’s Memoir

The Hawksbill Gang

From Picket Line to Mr. Majestyk

Picket Line: The Research

Picket Line - Act One of a Novel

That’s What It’s All About

The Elmore Leonard Box Set

Una commedia americana (An American Comedy)

Elmore Leonard in Hollywood Tour

Recent Posts

The Gregg Sutter Blog

On Twitter

The Official Elmore Leonard Website

Archives

Novels

Stories

Film and TV

New Elmore Leonard Biography

To Celebrate Elmore Leonard at 100—A Researcher’s Memoir

The Hawksbill Gang

From Picket Line to Mr. Majestyk

Picket Line: The Research

Picket Line - Act One of a Novel

That’s What It’s All About

The Elmore Leonard Box Set

Una commedia americana (An American Comedy)

Elmore Leonard in Hollywood Tour

Next

Recent Posts

The Gregg Sutter Blog

On Twitter

The Official
Elmore Leonard Website