Charlie Martz and Other Stories: Unpublished Crime and Western Fiction from Elmore Leonard – Fifteen Classic Stories

by Elmore Leonard

A collection of fifteen stories, eleven of which have never been previously published, from the early career of bestselling American master Elmore Leonard.

Over his long and illustrious career, Elmore Leonard was recognized as one of the greatest crime writers of all time, the author of dozens of bestselling books—many adapted for the big screen—as well as a master of short fiction. A superb stylist whose crisp, tight prose crackled with trademark wit and sharp dialogue, Leonard remains the standard for crime fiction and a literary model for writers of every genre.

Marked by his unmistakable grit and humor, the stories in Charlie Martz and Other Stories—produced early in his career, when he was making his name particularly with westerns—reveal a writer in transition, exploring new voices and locations, from the bars of small-town New Mexico and Michigan to a film set in Hollywood, a hotel in Southern Spain, even a military base in Kuala Lumpur. They also introduce us to classic Leonard characters, some who recur throughout the collection, such as aging lawman Charlie Martz and weary former matador Eladio Montoya.

Devoted Leonard aficionados and fans new to his fiction will marvel at these early works that reveal an artist on the cusp of greatness.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Westerns, Mystery Thriller, Contemporary

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 2015

About the author

Elmore John Leonard lived in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Memphis before settling in Detroit in 1935. After serving in the navy, he studied English literature at the University of Detroit where he entered a short story competition. His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures.

Father of Peter Leonard.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a fan of "the Dickens of Detroit," don't be put off by this book's pedestrian title - Martz, a collection of over a dozen short stories from Leonard's early years (back when he was churning them out for now-defunct magazines like Argosy and Collier's in the 50's) has a few gems in the mix. They are mostly westerns and crime-oriented tales, of course - his bread and butter - but my favorite in the bunch were the more off-beat dramas like Evenings Away From Home (a awkward Mad Men-esque work trip) and The Only Good Syrian Foot Solider is a Dead One (the life of a Hollywood extra), although the sinister For Something To Do (a mundane-seeming husband has to rise to the occasion when his wife and home are threatened) seems like it would've been a really tight, suspenseful little TV-movie back when the ABC network used to produce them regularly in the mid-70's.

[Denise Billings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every night I looked forward to my bedtime reading. Sometimes turning off the television and going to bed early so I could get back to these great stories. Each short story is so engrossing. The characters are pushed to the edge. Forced to make decisions in situations that they'd never thought about before in their otherwise regular, ordinary, average, garden variety lives. Forced to stand up for themselves. Forced to face sexism. Forced to face themselves.

[Pop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early writings of EL before he was published. Some, like the Charlie Martz stories, shows his budding brilliance. A couple weren't so good but all in all I enjoyed this collection of short stories. Must read for fans of EL.

[Moshe Mikanovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5* average of each story below:

One, Horizontal - 2* - bad boys, stupid boys. Nothing good can come out of it...

Charlie Martz - 3* - good buildup but a predictable and unsatisfying end

Siesta in Paloverde - 2* - hmmm, same story as the one before, same main character, almost the same setting, nothing new, just a variation.

Time of Terror - 3.5* - not bad. Different from previous western stories, this one deals with English colonialism and terrorists in Malaya

A Happy, Lighthearted People - 3* - a bit hard to follow with pop culture references to old movies from the last century, but still a nice little story

Arma Virumque Cano - 4* - I liked this very short story. In the olden days, when people just did good deeds to other people, and then, sometime, got abused.

Confession - 4* - a priest, 3 robbers and $3000 in the wild-wild-west

Evenings Away from Home - 4*
Something To Do - 4*
I really start enjoying Leonard's style. Real, accessible, at times surprising. Two nice shorts

The Italian Cut - 3*

The Only Good Syrian Foot Soldier Is a Dead One - 5* - my favorite so far! Great exposition and buildup towards the end. Loved it

The Line Rider - 4* - although I don't care too much for the western genre, the lesson learned for this boy "coming of age" short story is great

The Trespassers - 4* - conflict resolution done right

The Bull Ring at Blisston - 4* -another great story, where Leonards packs character, plot, and transformation in a small nice package

Rebel on the Run - 3* - don't care much for historical fiction at the time of the American Civil War, but wasn't a bad read either.

[Brian Stillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviews on GoodReads for Charlie are refreshingly sane compared to the whining twits on Amazon.

Dutch in his prime - which is most all 40+ entries in his oeuvre - is Coke. All the sugar is there.

This early stuff is Diet Coke. Not Coke. If you want to taste Coke, drink a Coke.

The Amazon reviewers are screaming at the fact that the publisher offered up a can of Diet Coke, told them explicitly on the dustjacket it was Diet Coke, and they drank the Diet Coke, and damned if it wasn't the Diet Coke the publisher promised.

I can't imagine Elmore would want such folk as fans. I can only begin to imagine the treatment dished out to such a lot by the likes of Louis and Ordell or Cundo.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the strongest collections of short fictions I've ever read. I used to read EL religiously, but then I didn't really enjoy some of his work late in life and kind of drifted away. Well, consider me drifted back. Now I have to go back and read everything he ever wrote because this guy was a genius. I agree with the assessment that he simply cut out all the boring parts and just gives you all the best parts of a story. These stories are lean and mean (and I do mean mean). Great stuff!

[Larry Bassett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listen to this book in the audible format while reading along in the e-book. I have a couple of books by this author in hardcover that I bought used sometime ago thinking he was somebody I should read. But then I began to have some visual problems tracking lines in paper books so they are still sitting on my shelf.

But these short stories almost without exception I found extremely good and even fascinating. The characters are unique and intriguing. I think all of the stories were evidently written in the 1950s. Michigan locations come up a lot so maybe this guy is from there. I was born and raised in Southeast Michigan and lived the first 35 years of my life there.

It is interesting to me that most of the stories in this book were previously unpublished. That could not have been because they were of poor quality so I wonder about the reason. Maybe they were just packed away in a box that was later discovered.

I am surprised to see that I am rating this book better than many other reviewers. I will have to read some of the reviews and find out more about Elmore. Maybe even check out those books of his already on my bookshelf.

[Barry Medlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first read from Elmore Leonard and this one offered a wide variety of writing and I enjoyed it all!

[David Cranmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Film critic Roger Ebert nailed it when reviewing the Stephen Soderbergh 1998 adaptation of Leonard’s Out of Sight, by saying, “Elmore Leonard is above all the creator of colorful characters.” And this collection certainly serves up another batch of those gravelly, authentic, fringe-dwelling lives. First time readers to Leonard should probably start with one of his later novels like 52 Pick-Up, Stick, or Glitz. Leonard aficionados by all means should dig straightaway into Charlie Martz and Other Stories and savor what little we have left from this undisputed master.

[ღ Carol jinx~☆~☔ʚϊɞ · Rating 5 out of 5]

He was an amazing writer.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightfully UNfluffy short stories, carefully selected and introduced by his son. Some were written long ago. I hope there are more.

[J.D. Frailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

If these stories were written by anyone else I would have probably knocked off a star, but they’re by the immortal Elmore Leonard, “the Dickens of Detroit,” early previously unpublished stories, and I can’t disrespect the man. His son provides an intro, says in some of the stories his dad violates several of his own famous 10 Rules of Writing (never open with the weather, never use adverbs to modify action, only use the word “said” in dialog). I still loved these stories, some of them westerns, good stuff.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

HarperCollins is counting the days until they release the new/old Harper Lee novel. In the meantime, their fellow company Wm Morrow just published a book of early, mostly unpublished stories by The Late, Great Elmore Leonard. The good news is that although not top drawer Dutch, the stories are mostly pretty good, in a pulp sort of way. The title character, a phlegmatic marshal in the Old West, appears in two stories, much in the Louis L'Amour mold. Some of the stories are about men, underestimated by those around them, who rise to the occasion. The only clunker in the collection is a civil war story that ends the all-too-short volume; it is part romance, part anachronistic feminist story. The major drawback of the collection is the absence of any introductory or bibliographic info: where did they come from?, were any of these published? A lovely intro by Dutch's son sets the tone (alluding to Dutch's admiration of Hemingway) but it would be great to know the provenance of the stories, which I suspect were written for specialized magazines. Still, the essence of Leonard's fiction is developing in these stories, and every now and then a sentence in the best Dutch style appears. Juvenalia has never been so welcome.

[Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A volume of unpublished stories by Elmore Leonard. The master of crime fiction died in 2013 so this collection of his early work is an unexpected and welcome bonus. The stories of course come with training wheels but the future genius of the man can still be recognized.

He was unequaled for quirky characters, spot-on dialog and believable stories told with wit and humor. I wish I could give proper credit for this but somewhere I read the following: Imagine coming across an Elmore Leonard novel for the first time. Then after reading it and being blown away by it you would have 45 or so more books to read to get caught up.

The stories are not presented chronologically. However the skill level seems to build with each one. I could begin to see and recognize the familiar Elmore Leonard ingredients. My favorite was the matador story. It has all the elements of the master's later great work.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Been a diehard Elmore Leonard fan since the 1980s but I prefer novels to short stories, so I dithered a bit before picking up Leonard's "Charlie Martz and Other Stories" (2015) ... especially given the subtitle: "The Unpublished Stories." Yeahhhh ... there's usually a reason for something like that. Given that Leonard died in 2013, you had to wonder if somebody wasn't just trying to squeeze one last bit of milk out of the cow. And, well, yeah. None of the 15 stories -- a '50s and '60s mix of generic westerns, Hemingway-inspired noir and Cheever-like tales of suburban malaise -- is anything special. Easy to read but interesting mostly as an early contrast to the wry, no-nonsense crime novels that later made Leonard famous. A curiosity, nothing more.

[Mike Harper · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read and enjoyed almost everything Elmore Leonard ever wrote. These short stories went unpublished until after Leonard's death, and for good reason: they aren't very good. They are sketches done by an aspiring writer before he hit the stride that ultimately made him famous. They are at the level one might expect from a student - an A student - in a writers' workshop. You can see Leonard's style developing, which may be enough for a dyed in the wool fan, but most of what he published during his lifetime is much better.

[Bryan D · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first collection of Elmore Leonard short stories I've read and it proves yet again that here's a master at work, majority were written in the 50's and 60's and it's distinctive Leonard, the humour, cleverness and compulsive reading of his later novels are present here with many a fun yarn to keep a devoted fan and a new arrival to Mr Leonard's chaotic world happy, well worth a read and it should be in everyone's library

[Luana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good, some less so.

I read this out of a completionist impulse, but it was short and alright enough that I did not regret it. Best stories are definitely ones with the communist militia girl, the bullfighter and the padre. Kinda interesting to see ideas get reworked (two Charlie Martz stories, two different home invasion stories). Even Elmore Leonard's a guy who puts his pants on one leg at a time!

[markpills · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some early works of the great Elmore Leonard, showing talent that was developing while he worked a full-time job in advertising. Collection of vignettes, some with truncated endings but plenty of character development. To quote another guy on this site, "He was unequaled for quirky characters, spot-on dialog and believable stories told with wit and humor." (end quote)

[Casie Blevins · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF'ed. Published posthumously. Not his best work. I doubt he wanted this to be republished.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

gonna have to buy this one, had to turn this one in to the library

[Bobby Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

So my five-star rating is contingent on a couple of things.

First of all, these are stories from early in Leonard's career, and they are noted as "the unpublished stories" right on the cover.

There's a reason that 110 of these stories are unpublished: Many of them are unremarkable--ordinary--and it's easy to see the book as the cash grab by Leonard's publishers and estate that it clearly is. Many of these stories owe a great deal to Ernest Hemingway, and much of Leonard's unpublished work was (and is) was well-written but derivative. It's easy to see why much of the work went unpublished.

But here's what elevates the book beyond a boorish cashing in after the death of a rightly beloved American writer: I've read nearly everything that Elmore Leonard ever published, from Westerns to crime to send-ups of pop culture, and it's clear from these first offerings that Leonard was not a genius of the first order when he started writing. Indeed, Leonard's genius was unearthed by years of hard work, by excavating his own tendencies and discovering the buried treasure of his own unique voice.

As a pretty good writer in my own right--not great, not even publishable yet, but good--it's a hugely important lesson to me that the "genius" a writer finds comes through the work. There's a period of imitation, a period of searching for words and means that are your own. Leonard went through that and found himself as a writer in a way that few other crime writers ever did. Donald Westlake and Larry Block are two of the other crime novelists who are also writers and stylists of the first order, and neither of them ever "broke out" in the same way Leonard did.

I bought this copy second-hand for about five bucks. I don't know that I'll ever re-read it, but the lessons I'll take with me are certainly worth five stars.

Also, the best story in the whole shootin' match is "The Bullring at Blisston." It was easily worth the price of the book, as it takes on a Hemingway favorite (bullfighting) and puts a unique spin on it. You can see Leonard's future in that story, and what a future it turned out to be.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Usually “previously unpublished works” of dead authors are dreck, but not in this case. Elmore Leonard — froooom the graaaave! — offers a diverse collection of stories written before he hit it big, showing not just a writer finding his style (at times this is painful), but also a variety of people and situations from the traditional Old West, from behind Union lines of the Civil War, from the struggles of a husband and wife caught in the middle of a home invasion and from the set of a big-budget film.

The only thing in common with these stories is a chucklehead who needs to learn a lesson or two. Fans will find themselves recognizing familiar situations, with the kind of attention drawn to character and dialogue Leonard would later perfect.

Some standouts: “One, Horizontal,” about a man who tries to intimidate a tough mobster; “Time of Terror,” where a communist infiltrates a local army base and informs her leader/lover of a strategic opening; “Evenings Away from Home,” which follows a married art director on location with some babe models; “The Tresspassers,” about a woman who must root some punks off her property.

Really, I felt there was only one dud among them all — and overall it’s good enough to stand aside his more recognized novels.

[Shannon Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of short stories by Elmore Leonard. I enjoyed the mix of stories, with some westerns, crime, and others all thrown together. There wasn't one that I hated in the mix, though some didn't have any real impact for me. My favorites were "One, Horizontal;" "The Bull Ring at Blisston;" and "Siesta in Palo Verde."

One thing that irked me was the weakness/uselessness of the female characters in 90% of the stories. These are, by and large, stories about men (which I don't take issue with), with the women either part of the problem, a means to an end, or incidental (this is where I take issue). However, these stories were written in the 60s and thereabouts, and keeping that in mind made sense of the characterization of the women. One of the better female characters is in "The Bull Ring at Blisston," and considering he wrote stories that led to the films "Out of Sight," "Jackie Brown," and others with good female characters, it seems like he improved at this later on.

All in all, I'm happy I picked this up on a whim, and I pan to pick up a couple of his later novels to check out.

[Dan Downing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometime around 1983 an associate in a chain bookshop, in a mall of all places, chatted me up, then recommended Elmore Leonard. At the time, Mr. Leonard was relatively new to the modern crime novel, having spent a few years producing mostly westerns. Myself, I'd moved past westerns a few years before, and thus missed his earlier work.
Among the short stories presented here are a few westerns and a Civil War story, too. Since that day in 1983, I've read about thirty Leonard novels. His prose is close to me. I feel him moving the words around in these stories, searching for his unique voice. That isn't a misuse of the word: many writers sound alike, but no one sounds like Elmore, not even those who try to copy him.
Why these stories were not published earlier, I do not know. Nor do I know the impetus for having printed them back in 2015. But I bought the book then and cherish it now, grateful for its existence.
Recommended

[Rob Epler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really REALLY like Elmore Leonard, so I am pretty much on board for whatever he writes. That said, as other reviewers here have noted, this is a collection of previously unpublished stories, so go it with that caveat. Some feel more like character sketches than whole stories with a beginning/middle/end, but if you're a fan of Dutch, you know how god he is with character & dialog, so I'd say it's still worth taking a dip in the pool. Added bonus: This is a very quick read, so no big commitment.

Side note: If you've never done one of Leonard's books via audiobook, I would recommend trying it out. His stories lend themselves particularly well to being told out loud, IMO (much like they lend themselves very well to cinematic adaptation). Added bonus: In addition to very talented voice pros, some interesting readers have done these books, like Robert Forster.

[Anthony Giancola · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went three because two felt too low, but I would honestly describe this as a two and a half book. While some of the short stories are almost perfect, and most of them have at least one brilliantly executed sequence, these all feel half finished. It’s clear to me that these unpublished short stories were unpublished for a reason. They’re more writing exercises than anything else.
Case in point, the title character Charlie Martz appears in two stories and there is absolutely no continuity between the two, his characterization is completely different in both, but they follow basically the same plot. Which, writing the same character two different ways is a good exercise, but it reads confusingly in a short story collection.
Still, there’s enough here that will keep you invested if you’re a Leonard fan.

[Bob Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think my review is already in the foreward, written by his son, Peter: " you'll see glimpses of Elmore's greatness to come". The book contains 15 stories, mostly written in the late 1950's and early 1960's. The westerns, which is where Elmore started his professional writing, are the better stories in this group. He's able to build the drama in confrontations between the protagonists to a finer pitch in these stories. Or maybe it's because you're expecting a dramatic ending and when he pulls the string its even more effective.
The magic in Elmore was always in the endings. The endings in these stories vary from very good to average. I'm a long time Elmore fan and was glad to find even a few more of his writings. If you're not a fan, I'm not sure you want to read this.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a 3-star book if you're looking for a collection of short stories, as there's a reason they're unpublished even if Leonard's talent undeniably shines through even in his embryonic period.

But this is a 5-star book for a Leonard superfan. It was fascinating to read these stories where he's trying to be Ernest Hemingway and learning to be Elmore Leonard.

Of particular note are the two Charlie Martz stories, which are essentially one story in two drafts (and tremendously improved). So this is more fascinating than excellent. But fascinating for me nonetheless.

[Linda Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't totally like this book, but anything by Elmore Leonard is probably worth reading. This book is an interesting collection of unpublished stories...which is always intriguing to another writer. IMHO. There's also a very nice introduction by Leonard's son Peter Leonard. As mighr be expected in a collection of unpublished works, you wonder different things with different stories: "Was this just the wrong time the wrong place?" being the most common wonder for me. The stories all seem to be up to his standards.

~Linda Campbell Franklin