Masterful crime novelist Elmore Leonard has passed away at age 87 after a stroke.

Leonard published 45 novels during his prolific career, including several that were adapted into movies and TV shows, such as Get Shorty, 3:10 to Yuma, and Rum Punch (which became the movie Jackie Brown).

His New York Times obituary remembers him as a writer who “did not merely validate the popular crime thriller; he stripped the form of its worn-out affectations, reinventing it for a new generation and elevating it to a higher literary shelf.”