Givens is a Deputy U.S. Marshal and initially appeared in the novels Pronto and Riding the Rap. Leonard later penned the short story "Fire in the Hole", which became the basis for the television series Justified. In April 2011, Leonard revealed in an interview that the success of Justified had inspired him to begin work on a new novel about the character, with the title Raylan. In the novel Pronto, Givens is described as about forty years old, thin and rangy, and perpetually wearing a cowboy hat. He is a native of Harlan County, Kentucky. Raylan likes ice cream as mentioned on Justified. He has an intuition about people and their criminal intentions which usually leads to him shooting them despite his best efforts to resolve things peacefully. While Raylan is righteous, he is not a by-the-book saint and has been known to corner certain adversaries with every intention to kill them. This is the very thing that lands Raylan back in Harlan at the start of season one of Justified. In the n...