• Elmore Leonard consistently hits the New York Times bestseller list with each new hardcover. His previous book, Road Dogs, spent six weeks on the list.

• In December 2009, Leonard was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN USA in tribute to his accomplishments and contributions to the world of literature. In 2008, he was awarded the prestigious F. Scott Fitzgerald Award, whose previous recipients include William Styron, Norman Mailer, and John Updike.

• The series premiere of Justified, a drama based on Elmore’s character Raylan Givens (Riding the Rap, Pronto, “Fire in the Hole”), airs in March 2010 on FX.

Dara Barr, documentary filmmaker, is at the top of her game. She’s covered Bosnian women, Neo-Nazis, and post-Katrina New Orleans (for which she won an Oscar), but now she’s looking for an even bigger challenge. So she and her right-hand-man—a six-foot-six, 72-year-old, African-American man named Xavier—head to Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, to tackle modern-day pirates. Once they start filming, though, they find a whole lot more than they bargained for.

They quickly learn that almost nobody in Djibouti is what he seems. A whole mob of colorful characters patrols the surrounding seas, including a pirate chief who keeps a Mercedes in Djibouti and a cultured Saudi diplomat with dubious connections. There’s a billionaire American who plays different roles as the moods strike him. He loves champagne and firing his 600 caliber elephant gun. If his girlfriend Helene gets seasick or bored, he won’t marry her. And an al Qaeda terrorist from Miami with very lofty ambitions, who wants to blow up something big.

What Dara and Xavier don’t know is which guy is going to get the prize—and what they’ll have to do if they want it.