The Hot Kid

Leonard's 42nd novel lacks his trademark convoluted double- and triple-cross among the bad guys, the law, and the good guys acting just to the side of the law. Instead we get a down-home good guy with some trademark lines and a bunch of rascals throughout his career in the law. Is it worth it? You bet! Leonard proves his mastery as a storyteller by taking on a totally new setting for this latest crime novel--1930s Oklahoma. The man who perfectly captures Miami gangsters, Hollywood film wanna-bes, high-class urban strippers, and cops everywhere proves that he can do it all again, in new territory, that of the Dust Bowl, bank robbers, speakeasies, US Marshals, Prohibition, and farm girls trying to make their name in Midwest cities. As I said, there is no masterful all-encompassing crime plot to carry the entire novel, but the reading is engaging nonetheless. The Hot Kid is a series of vignettes in the life of oil-well boy Carl, who witnesses a crime as a child and grows up to become the most respected (and feared) marshal in the state. Carl has run-ins with bank robbers, with crime journalists, with gun molls, with speakeasy owners, and with downright ruthless cold-blooded killers. His nemesis is Jack Belmont, a wanna-be criminal rebelling against his millionaire dad, and the two cross paths repeatedly throughout the novel. Leonard develops a rich cast of characters (as usual, some are on the right side, others on the wrong side, and still others just to the edge of the law) whose lives intersect again and again during US Marshal Carl Webster's career. The dialogue, as one would expect in a Leonard novel, is outstanding. The characters leap off the page and the reader is transported to another time and place. This is a true winner of a crime novel, and a shining entry in Elmore Leonard's long-standing career at the top of the genre.

There are writers. There are novelists. There are storytellers. And there is Elmore Leonard who seeming transcends classification. Leonard is at his lyrical, mythmaking best here as he tells the story of a little Oklahoma boy who is robbed of his ice cream cone by a two-bit bank robber, an event that shapes his future. Carl Webster grows to be a man and becomes a Deputy United States Marshall during the heyday of bank robbers. Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonny and Clyde capture the nation's attention, while J. Edgar Hoover, Melvin Purvis and - of course - Carl Webster seek their own headlines. In a millieu of dirt-poor farmers become millionaires through the Oklahoma oil boom, whores with good hearts, a rich man's son turned bad and the muse of Tony Antonelli, crime reporter, all the stories mix and blend thanks to Leonard's gifted pen. Each of the characters is rich and full-blooded. The scent of Oklahonma's backroads and Kansas City's opulent brothels and their denizens is strong as the trails of bandits, lawmen, rich men, demented mothers, prostitutes and demented sons cross and re-cross. Elmore Leonard has crafted many a fine tale: but "The Hot Kid" is undoubtedly one of his best and a thoroughly satisfying read. Jerry

I'm not into westerns so I was a little worried when I heard Mr. Leonard's new novel was set in Oklahoma, especially when I knew that Mr. Leonard starting in the writing biz writting hack westerns. Have no fear, this is a crime novel just set in 1930's Oklahoma -- think "Oh Brother where art thou" mixed with "Mixed with Get Shorty" well, not exactly but lets just say the book still has a certain hipness even though it is set 70 years ago. Mr Leonards trademark is his ability to develop real characters that jump from the page, and this is the case in the HOT KID. Both ends, and the middle, of the good/evil spectrum are explored here against the rough and tumble times of depression era Oklahoma.

I have come to the conclusion that there is no reliable measure by which the magnitude of Elmore Leonard's ability can be gauged. He was at one point referred to, with some accuracy, as America's most popular unknown author. He is no longer unknown; he has, in fact, created his own subgenre of sorts, inhabited by tough guys, clever guys, and tender and tougher women. One can never predict what is going to happen in an Elmore Leonard novel, or even what he will pick as subject matter from one work to the next. At a point when an author of his stature, of his talent, could phone in a reliably entertaining work, Leonard continues to test, and stretch, the boundaries that he previously marked off. So now Leonard favors us with THE HOT KID, a work set in the Oklahoma of the 1930s. It is Leonard's most ambitious, and arguably best, work to date, rich in dialogue, characters, and subtle contrasts. Leonard focuses primarily on Carl Webster and Jack Belmont, two men of not-dissimilar backgrounds with divergent career paths. Webster's father is a career Oklahoma pecan farmer who became wealthy quite by accident when oil was discovered on his land. Belmont's father deliberately sought oil and found it, becoming a millionaire by arduous and dangerous trial and error. Both men seem to have their respective courses set in their teen years --- Webster's through a chance encounter with an outlaw, Belmont's through a family tragedy that he precipitates out of misfeasance at best and malfeasance at worst. They each fashion a rebellion of sorts against their fathers. Webster rejects his father's gentle entreaties to continue the family pecan farm business by becoming a U.S. Marshal. He quickly grows famous for his killing of a notorious bank robber, as well as his code of honor. Belmont, for his part, also rejects his father but in a more heinous manner. He blows up one of his father's oil derricks, then by turns attempting to blackmail him and kidnapping his paramour, before embarking on a bankrobbing spree throughout Oklahoma and Kansas. It isn't long before Webster is on Belmont's trail. Belmont, however, wants to be Public Enemy Number One, and the quickest way for him to acquire that title is to hunt Webster. Part of Leonard's appeal always has been his ability to breathe characters upon the printed page, and he never has done so more sharply than on the pages of THE HOT KID, etching good and evil in bas relief and highlighting where the boundaries meet and blur. Leonard also subtly paints the rise and fall of fortunes in Oklahoma --- a trajectory that played itself out over the course of a decade --- against the backdrop of a tale of easy money, easier women, and rough justice. This is a masterful tale, told by The Master. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Coming from one who has read all forty of Mr. Leonard's novels, The Hot Kid ranks up there with Tishomingo Blues, Get Shorty, and City Primeval my all-time favorites. As usual, the prose is lean and spare, Leonard's characters never, like Chili Palmer, saying more than they have to, if that. Capturing the essence of the 1930s in a hip and entertaining way was certainly an ambitious goal -- and Leonard nails it. As I read the book, necessarily in one sitting, I found myself reading passages out loud just to savor the dialogue. After the lackluster but still readable Mr. Paradise, it was wonderful to see the master is back in top form. I loved this book.