Up in Honey's Room (Mass Market Paperback)

by Elmore Leonard (Author)
Key Phrases: kid gangster, hot kid, Joe Aubrey, Carl Webster, Walter Schoen (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Harper (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060724269
• ISBN-13: 978-0060724269
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #261,183 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Leonard's best work, July 18, 2007

By	Richard Mabry "author, retired physician" (Frisco, TX, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Up in Honey's Room: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was disappointed in this one. The first several chapters spent way too much time and space reviewing the plot from the previous Leonard book that this sequel follows. As always, he has created a cast of characters that are worth watching, but there's too much backstory and too many scenes that don't really contribute to the flow of action. I'm truly sorry, because I've always been an Elmore Leonard fan. I hope the next one is better.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than "Hot Kid!", May 16, 2007

By	Sara Chung (SF, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Up in Honey's Room: A Novel (Hardcover)

I usually don't care for sequels but this follow up to Leonard's "Hot Kid" I enjoyed more than the original. I would not mind seeing More Of US Marshal Carl Webster in the future! It's the final days of WWII and Gunslinging Marshal Webster is back in action trying to track down two escaped German POWs. He follows them to Detroit were they are being hidden by a German Butcher. The buthcher's exwife is a beautiful smart talking blonde named Hone Deal, who soon has straight arrow Marshal Webster considering breaking his marriage vows. The fun is in watching the interaction between Webster and Honey, while the marshal tries to find the escapees. I don't want to give away too much but this book's strength lies more in its use of humor than in actual crime plotting--Typical of this author. While "Hot Kid" was a kind of updated western, "Honey Deal" is a kind of sophisticated pot boiler mixed with some slapstick! Leonard is the master at mixing Genres.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too many viewpoints, not much happening, June 28, 2007

By	Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" (Little Falls, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Up in Honey's Room: A Novel (Hardcover)

World War II is winding toward a conclusion in this semi-farcical Leonard mystery. Two German prisoners have escaped and U.S. Marshall Carl Webster is hot on their trail. Webster tracks them to Detroit, where he's pretty sure they've connected with Nazi "provocateur" Walter Schoen.

Leonard uses multi-viewpoints to tell the story, and that's part of the problem with the book. Not very many of this cast of clowns are very likable or interesting. The title character, Honey Deal, Walter's former spouse, is the worst of the lot. Why in the world would a woman who looks like a Miss America contestant marry somebody like Walter Schoen, a Heinrich Himmler look-a-like? She also has the morals of an alley cat, unable to make up her mind whether she wants Carl Webster or former tank commander Jurgen Schrenk.

Carl Webster's background is also a bit hard to accept. The "Hot Kid" has a reputation as a hard-nosed G-Man, but he lets one of the incompetent Nazi spies get the drop on him. Even his wife is larger than life. She's a marine who teaches gunners how to fire a machine gun out of the back of a plane. Then there's Bohdan Kravchenko, the crazy transvestite. Sigh!

The plot isn't much to speak of either. Walter's co-conspirators, led by Vera Mezwa, just don't seem to have their hearts in it. Jurgen Shrenk is more interested in becoming a rodeo bull rider than he is in any kind of sabotage. The closest they get to undermining the American war effort is a deluded plot to kill the president, and only one of them is interested. Leonard seems to realize nothing much is happening, so he throws in a couple of distracting murders, the motivation for which is completely baffling.

Leonard does seem to be having fun at times. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the German word for pretty or beautiful is close to Schoen. Himmler was one of the ugliest men in record history. Also one of the escaped prisoners is named Otto Penzler, an editor at Mysterious Press. I sort of perked up when Penzler was seduced by an American con woman who needed a partner to help sell smuggled nazi contraband, but Leonard quickly drops this thread for the pedestrian stuff.

I've read about a half dozen Leonard novels. He's usually quite good at hooking the reader, then gets loose in the middle, before finishing strong. Nothing works here.