The Hot Kid (Carl Webster) [Kindle Edition]

Elmore Leonard (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Before Elmore Leonard abandoned westerns to blaze across the pantheon of bestsellerdom with his hip, stylish thrillers, punctuated with dead-pan humor and dialogue worthy of a David Mamet play, he might have written The Hot Kid; it has some of the same crisp pacing and well-defined, if not especially complex, characters that marked his earlier novels. A show-down between Tulsa oil wildcatter and millionaire Oris Belmont and his 18-year-old son, who's attempting to shake him down, says all there is to say about both men:

"I don’t know what's wrong with you. You're a nice-looking boy, wear a clean shirt every day, keep your hair combed ... where'd you get your ugly disposition? Your mama blames me for not being around, so then I give you things .. you get in trouble, I get you out. Well, now you've moved on to extortion in your life of crime ... I pay you what you want or you're telling everybody I have a girlfriend?"

Jack Belmont's blackmail scheme doesn't work, but after destroying his father's property, forging checks in his name, kidnapping his mistress, and joining a gang of notorious bank robbers after his release from prison, he encounters another man trying to get out from under his father's large shadow and create his own, bigger one. Deputy U.S. Marshal Carl Webster, who at age 15 shot a man trying to steal his cows and six years later dispenses equal justice to Emmet Long, the leader of Belmont's gang, now has Jack Belmont in his sights. Webster's exploits have earned him even more celebrity than Jack, who dreams of rivaling Pretty Boy Floyd as public enemy number one.

We’re in the early 30's here, just as a dust cloud is rolling across the Oklahoma plains--the days of Bonnie and Clyde, when gangsters captured the public attention, and Leonard makes good use of place and time. His minor characters are much more interesting than his protagonists, especially the women, and the writing shows occasional flashes of his trademarked ironic humor. But it's not as cool--or as hot--as even his most dedicated readers are used to, and there's barely a trace of the bizarre plot twists and unlikely coincidences that define his most recent caper novels in this one. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Leonard's (Get Shorty) 40th novel is a nearly flawless audio production. Initially, Howard's lackadaisical meter and reading style comes off as flat and unenthused. But as the flavor of the story steeps, his low-key, deliberate delivery sets the perfect pitch for Leonard's stripped down dialogue. His slow cowpoke pace leaves plenty of space for the nuance with which he breathes life into Leonard's characters. Everyone is tough, everyone is cool, and nearly all speak in clipped Hemingway-like sentences. However, Howard carefully assigns each character a specific voice, timber and speed, saving the most calm and cool for Carlos "Carl" Webster, the young, quick-drawing U.S. marshal hero of the tale. The only thing amiss with this package is the music that opens and closes each CD. This is a western tale of shootouts, cattle rustlers and bank robbers. The swanky, sultry jazz music with lilting sax better fits Chandler than L'Amour. Once past these spurious strains, however, the listener is in for a satisfying earful.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 280 KB
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (October 13, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000FCK51C
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,863 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Elmore Leonard has written more than forty novels, including bestsellers Up in Honey's Room, The Hot Kid, Mr. Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, Pagan Babies, and Glitz. Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village, Michigan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new setting, a new time period, and Leonard once again proves that he deserves to be the master of crime fiction, March 1, 2006

By 

Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hot Kid : A Novel (Hardcover)

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.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leonard at the top of his form, June 6, 2005

By 

Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Hot Kid: A Novel (Hardcover)

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

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a western, masterful crime fiction, May 19, 2005

By 

Bill Pullman "Book reviewer" (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Hot Kid: A Novel (Hardcover)

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.