Elmore Leonard
Any fans?
I can close my eyes and randomly pick any one of the forty books he has written and I know I'll be in for a treat.
I recently read The Hot Kid about a John Dillinger type outlaw and the agent tracking him down and also, Swag about a couple of not so bright hold up artists who get a little too big for their britches.
It's a nice fallback genre. When you're not sure what to read next, Elmore's a solid standby.
Tishomingo sounds familiar. Was that used in a bugs bunny cartoon or something, like a Pismo Beach kind of reference? I know I've heard it somewhere before besides elmore leonard.
I bow to the altar of Elmore Leonard. He's seriously one of my favorite authors. I've read around 25 of his books already. I even tried to interview him for this site once.
Wanna have the pants scared off you in 90 seconds?
Watch 'Laundry Day', my new horror short:
What happened?
he's always hit or miss with me. 'pagan babies' was a great book, not anything like the other stuff he's written. 'be cool' was a good one but they trashed it with the movie. he's written a few that i didn't even finish. 'stick' was good, that's one of his first ones i think.
The title is a famous jazz song or something.
I know i've heard it in some movie, where a guy is just saying the word, like enjoying the way it rolls off the tongue. This is going to drive me batty trying to remember.
With the interview, he just wasn't available. The guy's sort of bigtime, ya know. 
Some of my favorite Elmore books are: Killshot, Unknown Man #89, Glitz, Rum Punch, Maximum Bob, 52 Pick Up, Cuba Libre, The Hot Kid, Pronto...
Wanna have the pants scared off you in 90 seconds?
Watch 'Laundry Day', my new horror short:
I've only managed to read Killshot, and Rum Punch so far and really thought they were quite wonderful, especially Killshot.
What would you recommend as the top five books for me to try next?
Leonard reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut in that I've read a ton of their books, but have trouble distinguishing one from the other when I try to remember.
But off the top of my head...
Tshimingo Blues
Pagan Babies
Mr. Paradise
The Hot Kid
Swag
I'm currently reading Stick and so far so good. I believe it was turned into a movie starring Burt Reynolds but I'm trying to forget that.
I've read Tishomingo Blues and Maximum Bob back in the day. Not bad but I'm not really into that genre anymore.