Elmore Leonard left a legacy of novels and short stories when he died Aug. 20, 2013. And nearly a year after his death, his works are as popular as ever.

On Aug. 29, the film Life of Crime, based on Leonard’s novel 1978 The Switch, will hit movie theaters.

True to Leonard’s work, the novel is an edgy, black-comedy approach to crime fiction in which a wealthy man sees the perfect end to his marriage when his wife is kidnapped. If he doesn’t pay the ransom, he reasons, she will be killed, and that, he believes, will save him alimony. Tim Robbins stars as Frank Dawson and Mickey, his estranged wife, is played by Jennifer Aniston. Isla Fisher is Frank’s new girlfriend. Mos Def and Will Forte also co-star.

For trivia buffs, the kidnappers are Louis Gara, played by John Hawkes, and Ordell Robbie, played by Mos Def using the name Yasiin Bey. Louis and Ordell returned in Leonard’s 1992 novel Rum Punch, which was made into the 1997 film Jackie Brown. The older Louis and Ordell were played by Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown.

But Life of Crime is only the start of what appears to be a mini resurgence of Leonard’s work.

On Sept. 4, the Library of America will release Elmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1970s, edited by Gregg Sutter. The compilation is a gorgeous book, true to what I expect from the Library of America.

The compilation features four significant Leonard novels, each of which gave us a glimpse of the route that the author was taking—darkly funny with razor sharp dialogue and twists that seem outlandish yet realistic at the same time.

The novels included are:

Fifty-Two Pickup, in which an adulterous businessman runs afoul of a crew of murderous blackmailers. Fifty-Two Pickup also was made into a film in 1986, starring Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, John Glover, and Kelly Preston.

Swag marks the first time that Leonard showed us his brand of comedy. In Swag, Frank Ryan has a plan to commit armed robberies with a car thief.

Unknown Man No. 89 delivers a complex pattern of crisscrossing rip-offs and con games in which Detroit process server Jack Ryan searches for a missing stockholder.

And, finally, The Switch is included. See the film and then reread the novel to decide which is better. (I think I know.)

The Library of America volume also contains a newly researched chronology of Leonard’s life, prepared with exclusive access to materials in his personal archive.

The book is edited by Gregg Sutter, a Detroit native, who began working for Leonard in 1981. He is currently at work on a biography of Leonard, from the perspective of being his full-time researcher for more than 30 years.

And we can expect more Leonard works. British publisher Weidenfeld & Nicolson has acquired 15 unpublished early stories, most written while Leonard was working as a copywriter at a Detroit advertising agency in the 1950s. The volume will be released in the fall of 2015, with HarperCollins publishing in the United States.

The stories are set in myriad locations from New Mexico to Malaysia and feature some characters that recur in later works.

And, of course, we have the sixth season of Justified to look forward to next year. Unfortunately, it will be the last season of Raylin and Boyd.