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‘Justified’ takes a page from Leonard’s book

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A while back I reviewed Elmore Leonard’s latest book, “Raylan,” which featured Leonard’s U.S. marshal character Raylan Givens, played in the FX series “Justified” by Timothy Olyphant.

In “Raylan,” the marshal investigates and runs afoul of a nurse and criminal crew who are stealing kidneys in a manner familiar to students of urban legends: They tranquilize people, deposit them in motel bathtubs and remove their kidneys.

Tonight’s episode of “Justified,” “Thick as Mud,” explores that same story line. In this case, the victim is Dewey, one of Harlan’s least intelligent lowlifes. As the episode opens, Dewey wakes up in a motel bathtub with a couple of incisions and a timeline until his body starts shutting down.

Dewey (Damon Herriman) staggers through much of the episode looking for cash in order to buy back his kidneys. He leaves a trail of knocked-over stores and rifled cash registers. And, of course, Raylan is on the case.

It all comes down to a face-off between Raylan and the kidney thieves.

Also tonight, Raylan’s frenemy, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) finally meets up with Quarles (Neal McDonough), the Detroit mobster who has come to Kentucky with plans to cut himself into the crime business.

Boyd, obviously sensing a threat, tells Quarles he’s not impressed with the smooth criminal’s style, evening going so far as to call him a carpetbagger.

The episode sets the stage for conflicts among Raylan, Boyd and Quarles. Not to mention Limehouse (Mykelti Williamson), who so far this season seems confined to showing up at the end of the episode and dispensing equal parts charm and menace.

I have to say I enjoyed the way “Justified” treated the kidney-snatching plotline more than the way Leonard — who got a story credit for tonight’s episode — handled it in his recent book.

“Justified” continues to be one of the best slice-of-criminal-life dramas on TV. The show, like its characters, make it all look so easy.

Elmore Leonard’s ‘Raylan’ a new take on the ‘Justified’ cop

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If you’ve been watching and enjoying “Justified” the past couple of years, you probably know that the FX series about the U.S. marshal dealing with hillbillies, meth dealers and killers in the hills of Kentucky is taken from the work of Elmore Leonard, one of the most beloved writers of crime drama.

The lead character in the show, Raylan Givens, has appeared in a couple of Leonard novels, “Pronto” and “Riding the Rap,” and “Justified” itself is based on a Leonard short story, “Fire in the Hole.”

Leonard has returned to Kentucky and the world of Raylan Givens in “Raylan,” a recent novel that some “Justified” fans will find familiar.

“Raylan” follows Givens as he deals with a marijuana-dealing family, a double-dealing coal company representative and a card-dealing poker player who happens to be a Butler University student from Indianapolis.

A couple of those plot points should seem especially familiar if you’ve watched the show, but Leonard — who apparently shared some storylines with the writers of the series — threw in a few twists. Marijuana-dealing brothers Dickie and Coover don’t answer to their mother, Mags Bennett, but to their father, and they’re involved in organ-snatching. And Carol, the coal company executive sent to Harlan County to persuade property owners to give up their mountain, is more dangerous here.

To be honest, the book feels a little half-baked. Is it because I knew and loved the TV versions of these stories and characters first? Maybe. But the coal company story goes nowhere and the storyline about the card-playing college student feels truly tacked on.

As much as I loved seeing Boyd Crowder, Raylan’s longtime friend and sometimes nemesis, in the book, he doesn’t have a lot to do.

And frankly I can’t imagine the Raylan Givens I’m familiar with doing some of the things Leonard has his character do in this book.

What happens when an author’s characters take on a life of their own? Well, Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes when he became something more to readers than to the author.

I’m sure Leonard — who wrote genre classics like “Get Shorty” and “Out of Sight” — can live with the TV incarnation of his Kentucky lawman. And thanks to the TV show, viewers can embrace whichever they prefer.