Leonard's bandwagon had left the station by the time I heard its music, and I've had to do some running to catch up. But better late than never: Leonard is the real thing. He doesn't write "literature," and I'd be astonished if he claimed to; there's nothing in his fiction to suggest that he packs even an ounce of pretentiousness. But like John D. MacDonald, whom he resembles but does not appear to imitate, he raises the hardboiled suspense novel beyond the limits of genre and into social commentary; he paints an acute, funny and sometimes very bitter picture of a world that is all too real and recognizable, yet a world that rarely makes an appearance in the kind of fiction that is routinely given serious consideration.

It is a world in which people do business; they don't often do it honestly, but in one form or...