- His "10 Rules of Writing" have attained near gospel status for both established and aspiring writers alike: 1. Never open a book with weather. 2. Avoid prologues. 3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. 4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said", he admonished gravely. 5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. 6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose." 7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. 8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters. 9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things. 10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
- Secretly wrote his earliest novels while working at an advertising agency. He kept paper in a desk drawer and wrote with his arm stuck in the drawer. When somebody came by his desk, he closed the drawer. He took his writings home every night and rewrote them.
- In nearly every film made from his books, there is a scene where at least one person gets locked in the trunk of a car.
- His favorite film adaptation of his books is Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997) (from "Rum Punch").
- Refuses to use a word processor. He writes all his first drafts in longhand, then rewrites on a typewriter.
- His first story was published in "Argosy" magazine in 1951, and in the following 60 years, he wrote a book every year, with his 45th, "Raylan," being published in 2012.
- His father, an executive with General Motors, moved the family to Detroit, MI, when he was nine years old. After graduating from high school in 1943, he spent two years in the Navy, graduated from the University of Detroit in 1950 and became a copywriter for a local advertising agency.
- Served with the Seabees in the US Navy, 1943-45.
- His many awards include the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers, the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, the Diamond Dagger Award from the Crime Writers' Association of Great Britain and, an honorary U.S. National Book Award for lifetime achievement (2012).
- Universal Pictures bought the rights to his novel "La Brava" before it was published, but never produced it as a movie.
- Resides in suburban Oakland County, MI. Many of his novels are set in Detroit and the surrounding suburbs.
- Attended the University of Detroit, studying English and philosophy.
- Worked as an advertising writer in the 1950s, initially only sidelining as an author of western fiction.
- Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, Vol. 133, pp. 307-315. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.
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