Book summary

Carl Webster, the star of Elmore Leonard's THE HOT KID, returns, this time doggedly pursuing a pair of escaped German POWs who have holed up in Detroit under the protection of a German butcher. Complicating matters are two women: a Nazi spy, Vera Mezwa, and Webster's ex-wife, the incorrigible and irresistible Honey Deal. As with all Leonard's work, the characters are vivid and pungent, the dialogue blows the dust off your brain, and the plot is as smooth as molasses. Tough, sharp, and cool in all the best ways--UP IN HONEY'S ROOM is a book to be read with enormous pleasure.

Media reviews

"It's as if the best of Mel Brooks and Quentin Tarantino were refined into something finer and purer....If there is a little more slapstick and a little less crime here than usual, it hardly matters. The talk's the thing, and Leonard hooks you with his first quotation mark." (starred review)

Up in Honey's Room

by Leonard, Elmore

Price: $4.99
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Book description: Harper. Mass Market Paperback. 0060724269 From Publishers Weekly Set in the waning days of WWII, bestseller Leonard's disappointing 40th novel finds gunslinging U.S. marshal Carl Webster, introduced in 2005's The Hot Kid, on the trail of Jurgen Schrenk and Otto Penzler, German POWs escaped from their Okmulgee, Okla., detention camp. The pair wind up in Detroit in the care of Walter Schoen, a butcher and Himmler look-alike, with whose ex-wife, wisecracking bottle-blonde Honey Deal, Carl soon finds himself smitten. While married Carl contemplates breaking his marriage vows (Honey does anything but dissuade him), Otto disappears and a dysfunctional German spy ring--led by hard-drinking Vera Mezwa and her cross-dressing manservant, Bohdan--cozies up with Jurgen. Vera and Bohdan, meanwhile, are secretly planning to disappear, but Bohdan wants to put in the ground anyone who could later give them up to the Feds. Leonard's writing--line by line--is as sharp as ever, but the plotting is uncharacteristically clunky and the pacing is stuck in low gear. Leonard has written a lot of great books, but this isn't one of them. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Bookmarks Magazine Though in his 80s, Elmore Leonard proves, in his 40th-something novel and sequel to The Hot Kid, that he's still at the top of his game. As in previous novels, character dominates plot: "What happens next is not really the point," notes the Boston Globe. Critics particularly praised the wonderful interaction between Carl and Honey, the crisp dialogue, and the chaotic threads that meld together into a coherent whole. The lack of narration, however, threw off a few critics, as did some exaggerated details and Carl's relatively uninteresting personality (he's now married, after all). But in the end, "Up in Honey's Room is a perfect example of a master storyteller spinning a tall one" (Philadelphia Inquirer). And, perhaps, a movie script. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. . New. 2008.