Photo: Dermot Cleary
Sample of authors
Leonard, Elmore
The American author Elmore John Leonard, Jr. was born in New Orleans, but because his father worked for the automobile industry, the family often moved homes. They lived in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Memphis before finally settling in Detroit in 1934. Leonard graduated from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School in 1943, after which he did his military service in the Navy and was sent to...
Literary figures
Boysie (Brian) Oakes
Gender: Male
He is recruited as a spy by mistake, and is regarded as tough, ruthless and bloodthirsty. In actual fact, he is an easy-going, forgetful and cowardly mummy’s boy, who hires gangsters to carry out the acts of violence he is ordered to do. This doesn’t prevent Brian ‘Boysie’ Oakes from making a career. It is simplest to describe him as a parody of James Bond, and John Gardner has written a suite of...