Everyone in the literary world has heard about the death of the iconic and irreplaceable Elmore Leonard. However, we felt compelled to mention it, too, officially. (Even if we're also officially sick of seeing that In Memoriam tag so much recently.) From the New York Times:
To his admiring peers, Mr. Leonard did more than merely validate the popular crime thriller; he stripped the form of its worn-out affectations, reinventing it for a new generation and lifting it to a higher literary shelf…
Mr. Leonard, who started out writing westerns, had his first story published in Argosy magazine in 1951, and 60 years later, he was still turning out a book a year because, he said, “It’s fun.”
Since there's no adequate way to describe his contribution, instead, our homage will be fittingly terse: Thanks.