Ole 'Dutch' Would Have Approved: The 'Justified' Finale And Producer Graham Yost on Who Survived — and Those Elmore Leonard Tributes

My wife and I enjoyed watching the finale of the TV series Justified tonight.

We've been watching Justified for the entire six seasons and we felt that the ending was done very well and in keeping with the unique style of the late great crime writer, Elmore "Dutch" Leonard.

Marisa Roffman at the Hollywood Reporter interviewed Graham Yost, the TV series producer, about the ending and the tributes to Elmore Leonard.

You can read the interview via the below link:

[Warning: This post contains spoilers from Justified's series finale.]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/justified-finale-graham-yost-raylan-788476

You can also read my Crime Beat column on Elmore Leonard via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/05/return-to-elmoreland-elmore-leonards.html

'Justified' Creator Aims To Stay True To The Late Writer Elmore Leonard

Terry Gross at NPR's Fresh Air interviewed Graham Yost, the producer of TV's Justified, the crime show based on the late great crime writer Elmore Leonard's novella, Fire in the Hole.

The FX series Justified, which is in its sixth and final season, is based on the novella Fire in the Hole by Elmore Leonard. Leonard was an executive producer of the series until his death in 2013. The show's creator and showrunner, Graham Yost, says he has made it his mission to stay as true as he can to Leonard's vision and storytelling style.

"Ultimately I look at this show as Elmore Leonard's show, and we're all in service of him and his view and his way of writing and creating these characters," Yost tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "So whatever feels like it works within that world is something we're open to."

Set in Harlan County, Ky., which is coal mining country, the story revolves around two men who have known each other since they were in the mines together as teens: Raylan Givens, played by Timothy Olyphant, and Boyd Crowder, played by Walton Goggins. Raylan is now a deputy U.S. marshal and Boyd is an outlaw whose criminal activities include robbing banks. Raylan wants to move to Florida to reconnect with his ex-wife and their 5-month-old child, but first he wants to bring Boyd down, which means catching him when he pulls off his next heist.

The show is violent, but Yost says he and the writers have to walk a line to keep the network happy.

"Elmore's world is a violent world," he says. "In the best Elmore scenes, you think that something is either going to take a hard turn into romance and some kind of liaison, or it's going to take it the other way and go into violence. There's often something oddly humorous about the violence in Elmore's movies and in his books."

You can read the rest of the piece and listen to NPR's audio clip via the below link:

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/26/395534419/justified-creator-aims-to-stay-true-to-the-late-writer-elmore-leonard

Note: You can also read my Crime Beat column on Elmore Leonard, one of my favorite writers, via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/05/return-to-elmoreland-elmore-leonards.html

Blue Dreams: Elmore Leonard's U.S. Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens Character To Appear In His Next Novel

Neal Rubin's column at the Detroit News offers the news that fans of crime writer Elmore Leonard's character U.S. deputy marshal Raylan Givens will see much more of him in the future.

Justified, the FX series based on an Elmore Leonard novella, was renewed this week for a fourth season. That's a good thing on several levels, Leonard says, starting with the fact that he just plain likes the character, federal marshal Raylan Givens.

Leonard, 86, appreciates Givens so much that he'll star again in his next novel, which is called Blue Dreams and was 15 pages along as of Wednesday. That's after appearing in the novella "Fire in the Hole," plus several earlier books and Leonard's current bestseller, Raylan: A Novel (William Morrow, $26.99).

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120308/OPINION03/203080376/Elmore-Leonard-s-Justified-character-appears-steadily-TV-books?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CEntertainment%7Cp

The above photo show Elmore Leonard in the center between Justified producer Graham Yost and actor Timothy Olyphant.

Book Em': Elmore Leonard's U.S. Marshal Character Goes From TV Back To A Book With 'Raylan'

Vince Cosgrove at NJ.com reviewed Elmore Leonard's new crime thriller Raylan.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, whose Stetson rides high and whose gun is quick, returns in Elmore Leonard’s latest thriller — after appearing in the novels “Pronto” and “Riding the Rap,” and the short story “Fire in the Hole.”

That story inspired “Justified,” the hit series that stars Timothy Olyphant as Raylan (its third season kicks off Tuesday on FX). Leonard thinks so highly of “Justified” that he dedicated “Raylan” to Olyphant and Graham Yost, the series’ creator

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2012/01/raylan_a_book_review.html

I'm a big fan of Elmore Leonard and I like his Raylan Givens character in his novels and short stories and on the TV show Justified. I look forward to reading Raylan.