It's early on in the stuff he did, but developed enough that the plot and dialog are in good balance. Everything about two white dudes knocking over places in Detroit as a full-time job sounds legit, but the conversations they have are mundane in a way that's literary without seeming so.
I've heard Leonard is like an evolution of Richard Stark a.k.a. Donald Westlake, and that sounds about right. But Stark's Parker novels are brilliant exercises in pure plot, too.
For me its The Tiger A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant. I read it over a year ago and I still recommend it to people if we are talking about books. I enjoy the non-fiction that would almost make an unbelievable fiction type book (like Unbroken) and its also educational, intense and oh yeah its about a man eating tiger hunting people.
It's non-fiction about a non-stop race around the world in sailboats. I loved it because of how many characters it embraced and you were pulling for, and it opened up another 6 months of reading in its sources.
I'm really into fiction and I have read two great books lately.
The first one is Hyperion by Dan Simmons. It is the first book of a Sci Fi series the called the Hyperion cantos. Hyperion won the Hugo Awards and is absolutly amazing. It really got me hooked and I'm still reading the series.
The second one is Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. If you love fantasy as much as I do then this book is a must. It's close to perfection (that is in my opinion the Lord of the Rings).
A book called Kinshu by Teru Miyamoto. Someone recommended it to me, and gave me a brief synopsis of the story, didn't sound like something I would like, but I started reading it and I was absorbed. A great book from a criminally under rated author.
1) Tokyo Vice - Jake Adelstein
2) Masters of Doom - David Kushner
3) Everybody Loves Our Town - Mark Yarm (not to be confused with Mark Arm of Mudhoney fame)
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