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Les Roberts

Goodreads Author

Born

Chicago, IL, The United States

Website

http://www.LesRoberts.com

Genre

Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction

Influences

Raymond Chandler ...more

Member Since

July 2011

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/LesRoberts

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Les Roberts is the author of 15 mystery novels featuring Cleveland detective Milan Jacovich, as well as 9 other books of fiction. The past president of both the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writer's League, he came to mystery writing after a 24-year career in Hollywood. He was the first producer and head writer of the Hollywood Squares and wrote for the Andy Griffith Show, the Jackie Gleason Show, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E., among others. He has been a professional actor, a singer, a jazz musician, and a teacher. In 2003 he received the Sherwood Anderson Literary Award. A native of Chicago, he now lives in Northeast Ohio and is a film and literary critic." ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

I find your books captivating. How did you start writing about our area. I have been working on a book with a female character and using Cleveland as her home town. I can reflect on my Father and Uncle days in the police force but I am wondering how to get more updated information. Any suggestions?

Les Roberts Hi, Ju - congrats on writing a book set in Cleveland. I don't know whether your leading female character is a police officer, private investigator, or…moreHi, Ju - congrats on writing a book set in Cleveland. I don't know whether your leading female character is a police officer, private investigator, or something else----therefore there are different places and people to ask. If your father and uncle were cops, you must know someone of the police force to give you information. I'm friends with several Cleveland-area cops, both active or retired, and when I need information, it's only a phone call away. If you know no one, you should probably attend one of the many law enforcement meetings around town, introduce yourself. You can even come with me to the monthly meetings of the Greater Police Emerald Society. You'd be amazed how many badge-wearers are delighted to supply you with information. As far as the Cleveland atmosphere, which is entirely different from anyplace else I've ever been---just get out there. Meet people, drop in and have a drink at a relatively safe-looking tavern,and call ANYONE you care to for answers to your questions. I have cops, lawyers, coroners, doctors, artists, media people, real private eyes and, yes, even the---uh---"guys on Murray Hill" I can call whenever I need to. Always remember, though, that in fiction, ANYTHING is true if you, the author, says it is. If you look up in a book the accurate description of what a fiction writer does, it says, "Makes Stuff Up."

As for how I started writing about Greater Cleveland---back in 1987 I was living in Los Angeles, having worked for years as a film/TV writer and having written my first novel (NOT a Milan Jacovich), and was invited to spend several months in Cleveland creating and getting on its feet a TV game show for the Ohio Lottery. (That game was and IS "Cash Explosion," and it's still on the air after 29 years! No, I don't get paid royalties anymore.) Within two weeks of my being here, I'd completely fallen in love with Greater Cleveland, and when I returned to L.A. i began writing my first Milan novel, "Pepper Pike." (Currently eighteen published Milan novels now, and 30 books altogether.) I kept coming back to do research, to promote my novels, and after three years of that, I chose to move here. Last month I celebrated my 25th anniversary as a Greater Clevelander.

Contact me anytime, via Goodreads, Facebook, email, or even by telephone. (Just don't call before 3 in the afternoon, as mornings and early afternoons are writing time for me.) Most info is on my website, www.lesroberts.

Good luck, Les(less)

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If you could travel to any fictional book world, where would you go and what would you do there?

Les Roberts Since I love novels, especially mystery and thriller novels, set in the Old West, I suppose I'd find myself in a place like Dodge City or Tombstone---…moreSince I love novels, especially mystery and thriller novels, set in the Old West, I suppose I'd find myself in a place like Dodge City or Tombstone---but I'd not be a gunslinger on either side of the law. I'd probably be a politician trying to juggle the needs of oil and cattle barons and the poor working class.
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Combine Editions
Les Roberts’s books

Average rating: 3.83 · 5,771 ratings · 704 reviews · 74 distinct works • Similar authors

	Pepper Pike (Milan Jacovich, #1) 3.83 avg rating — 530 ratings — published 1988 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Full Cleveland (Milan Jacovich, #2) 3.90 avg rating — 357 ratings — published 1989 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Deep Shaker (Milan Jacovich, #3) 3.94 avg rating — 289 ratings — published 1991 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cleveland Connection (Milan Jacovich, #4) 3.98 avg rating — 284 ratings — published 1993 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Lake Effect (Milan Jacovich, #5) 3.92 avg rating — 261 ratings — published 1994 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Collision Bend (Milan Jacovich, #7) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 248 ratings — published 1996 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cleveland Creep (Milan Jacovich, #15) 3.83 avg rating — 258 ratings — published 2012 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Shoot in Cleveland (Milan Jacovich, #9) 3.90 avg rating — 249 ratings — published 1998 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cleveland Local (Milan Jacovich, #8) 3.96 avg rating — 226 ratings — published 1997 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Duke Of Cleveland (Milan Jacovich, #6) 3.95 avg rating — 220 ratings — published 1995 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Les Roberts's Blog

Learn the Florida Car Insurance Basics before shopping online.

If a resident of FL wants to operate a motor vehicle, the state requires them to have Florida Car Insurance. In addition, they must carry minimum coverage amounts for property damage liability and personal injury protection. However, most people supplement these with additional coverage.

Mandatory FL auto insurance has some of the lowest minimum coverage requirements in the country. However, how th

Series by Les Roberts

Milan Jacovich (19 books)
by

Les Roberts (Goodreads Author)

3.87 avg rating — 4,647 ratings

Dominick Candiotti (2 books)
by

Les Roberts (Goodreads Author)

3.70 avg rating — 240 ratings

Saxon (6 books)
by

Les Roberts (Goodreads Author)

3.72 avg rating — 191 ratings

Quotes by Les Roberts (?)

“Wild-eyed gun nuts who insist that guns don’t kill people are purely full of crap, as even a cursory glance at a newspaper on almost any given day will attest.”
― Les Roberts, The Lemon Chicken Jones

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“it’s important for fathers and sons to go to baseball games. It’s the American way of male bonding.”
― Les Roberts, Seeing the Elephant

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“First let me define for you what a friend is. A friend is the one you call when your car breaks down on the Calumet Expressway at three o’clock in the morning and you don’t have your checkbook with you and your credit cards are over their limit. A friend accepts you unconditionally, whether or not your politics, your religion, your lifestyle, or the baseball team you root for happen to be the same as his. A friend gives as much as he takes and then some, loves you for who and what you are and not for how much you have in the bank Of what you can do for him. Someone you can laugh with and cry with. Someone you can trust with your life, your kids, your wallet or your secrets.”
― Les Roberts, Seeing the Elephant

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Les’s Quotes

“Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.”
― Norman Mailer

tags: humor, writing

213 likes

“The rule is: the word 'it's' (with apostrophe) stands for 'it is' or 'it has'. If the word does not stand for 'it is' or 'it has' then what you require is 'its'. This is extremely easy to grasp. Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.”
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

67 likes

“Thurber was asked by a correspondent: "Why did you have a comma in the sentence, 'After dinner, the men went into the living-room'?" And his answer was probably one of the loveliest things ever said about punctuation. "This particular comma," Thurber explained, "was Ross's way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up.”
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

tags: grammar-humor

104 likes

“The reason it's worth standing up for punctuation is not that it's an arbitrary system of notation known only to an over-sensitive elite who have attacks of the vapours when they see it misapplied. The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.”
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

58 likes

“What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?”
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

tags: british-humor, english-language, grammar, humor, lynne-truss, punctuation, sentence-structure

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