"And so, in his monotonous scribe's job paid off in damp cacao beans, assisting the priest Angulo, keeping the monastery books, seeking to maintain himself aloof from gossip, hunting down Diego Malaventura, the town crier, in the village of San Juan de Herrera, sitting near the blank space on the wall where the portrait of The Bewitched King once hung, battling the bedbugs, listening patiently to the endless harangues of the Superior on the subject of the management of the holy abode, consoling himself at Smiles's shoemaker's shop where they stripped all the world naked, obsessed with Agueda Perez de Muro, he gradually became inured to the interminable rains of the month of May. Sometimes, as he went over the monastery accounts, his hand would stray to the corner of the pages and betray his hidden passion by drawing ankles and lace-trimmed booties, and the like. Returning to reality, he would hide the pages under his mattress, thankful that they were unnumbered and that the Superior did not notice that the ledgers were growing thinner, wasted by the accountant's hopeless passion. In any case, the Superior was well satisfied with him. When he reviewed the accounts, he took note of the neat columns listing cows, sacks of wheat, corn, beans, and cacao; fees for chapel services, masses for the dead, marriage ceremonies, cemetery services, and baptisms; mules, slaves, tapers, wineskins, flasks of honey; tithes, pharmacy services, and consolations of the dying. The only heading that never went into the books was that corresponding to the Superior's losses at dice and cards at the gambling sessions organized by governor Serrano at his house at six o'clock every Wednesday afternoon. These were personal accounts entered by the Superior himself in discreetest privacy The missing cows or cash shortages were balanced out in the books with fictitious donations that Pedro never verified. He kept the books straight with the data given him."

Is this your cup of tea? If so, send me your address and I'll send you the book straightaway. It seems like a shame for it to collect dust on my shelves.

My idea of great fiction is something like "Cuba Libre," Elmore Leonard's 1998 historical novel about the Spanish-American war. The main character is an ex-bank robber and cowboy who has come to Cuba to sell horses to a rich plantation owner, and guns to the rebels. Leonard's sympathies are with the rebels.

Most people know Leonard from his crime novels such as "Stick" or "Get Shorty" which have been made into popular Hollywood movies. There is little question that this is what he does best and he has never pretended that he is anything than what he is, a writer of pulp fiction. What's interesting is that every so often he deals with leftish themes, such as the pro-rebel "Cuba Libre" or the anti-contra "Bandits," a novel written in the late 1980s.

"Bandits" teams up a couple of likable bank robbers and a young woman who has seen contra violence first-hand in Nicaragua. They hatch a plot to rip off wealthy contra funders in the United States. I suppose that the reason so many of Leonard's heroes are bank robbers is that he knows most Americans just hate bankers and banks. Another likable bank robber was featured in Leonard's "Out of Sight," whom George Clooney played ably in the film version.

Although I don't think anybody else has figured out the appeal of Leonard's outlaw heroes, let me be the first to explain it to you. He has cannily reproduced the dramatic structure of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" and adapted to the modern temperament. His outlaws are modeled after Tom Joad, who only turns to crime when nothing else will work.

For example, Ben Tyler, the hero of "Cuba Libre" only robs banks because businessmen have taken advantage of him and there is no alternative. This passage will not only demonstrate this, but give you a sense of Elmore Leonard at his best: