At Slate, Justin Peters came up with five of the dumbest baddies Leonard created, including:Richie Nix, Killshot. This tremendously stupid fellow, who wears a T-shirt reading “It’s Nice to be Nice” and harbors ambitions of robbing a bank in every state (except Alaska), is a motormouth psychopath who kills for no reason. But he shows his stupidity by underestimating his partner, a laconic crook whom he insists on calling “the Bird.” “The Bird was Indian and they were a weird bunch anyway, believing you could get turned into a fucking owl,” Leonard writes from Richie’s perspective. “Donna didn’t know what kind of bird she’d be. Richie believed he’d be an eagle. Shit, be the best.” But when the Bird finally shoots Nix in the face as he’s blowing a gigantic bubble with his chewing gum, the talkative gunman doesn’t turn into a bird. He just dies.Read about the other criminals on the list.
Killshot is on the Telegraph's 110 best books list.
--Marshal Zeringue