Customer Reviews

Up in Honey's Room

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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.

I remember reading an interview with Elmore Leonard in which he said that if a writer is constantly casting about for different ways to use the verb "said" he's wasting his time. The key is the dialogue itself, not how one describes its utterance.

As I marveled at Up in Honey's Room's succinct, unexpected, witty dialogue, I was reminded of Leonard's statement again and again. Sure, this novel features characters that are a bit too outrageous, and sure, a few of the plot developments are worthy of an eye roll or two. Is it his best work? No, but please, make no mistake: This is a lean, funny book.

I hope that I can appreciate good writing like this when I'm 82... which is how old Leonard was when he wrote this novel!

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.

Elmore Leonard has written at least 40 novels. Published last year in hardcover and being released this month in mass market paperback, Honey is among the best--if not the best, just because it departs from the customary. It is different from his past work in the sense that it is set in the last days of WW II and the characters include a supposed Nazi spy ring and two escaped German POWs. What is familiar is that it takes place in Detroit and U.S. Marshal Carl Webster returns, seeking to recapture the escaped prisoners.

A review can't capture the delightful story of Honey and do it justice. Just read the novel and enjoy the inventiveness, humor and writing of Elmore Leonard.

Other commentators have mentioned that this is a slow-moving book and, to be fair, it is less action-packed than others that Elmore Leonard has written but it is well worth buying nonetheless. It is a comic novel, more like "Get Shorty" than "Cat Chaser", and is probably best approached through the audiobook format. There the narrator Arliss Howard brings all these character to life with a master-class in regional accents: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Germany, Ukraine, Kentucky, etc. The seven disks in the set made a long trip through the Midwest seem days shorter.

By the time I finished this book, I was of two minds about it, and couldn't tell whether it was supposed to be funny or serious(or perhaps some combination of the two). The writing, as always by Mr. Leonard, is first-rate, but sometimes you need a solid story on which to hang that excellent writing. The main characters are quite well-drawn, especially the Detroit butcher who believes he's the lost twin brother of Himmler. The other cast members are often mere artifacts, and you just can't get into any real relationship with them. The ending I found to be somewhat of a letdown, but posibly consistent with the character of the players in this tale. Having said all of the above, this book would be great beach reading, or something to pass the time with on a rainy week-end (which is why I read it).

After shooting his way through Prohibition in "The Hot Kid," US Marshal Carl Webster returns for another adventure during World War II. Carl is married now, but his wife Louly is a Marine gunner, who is currently at a base teaching new recruits. Carl is still living in Oklahoma, but heads for Detroit as soon as he is able when some German POWs escape from a camp near his father's pecan farm. Carl knows Jurgen Schrenk, who spent most of his childhood in Detroit, still has friends there, so Carl heads north to apprehend him. Once there, he meets Honey Deal, the ex-wife of German sympathizer Walter Schoen, who is a dead ringer for Heinrich Himmler and a little too proud of it. Carl believes Walter is hiding Jurgen and another escaped POW, Otto Penzler, an SS officer. Carl is a lucky man, and things usually go his way, but he has to tread very carefully on this assignment because he finds himself incredibly attracted to Honey Deal, who makes no bones about being very attracted to him. He made a promise to Louly on their wedding day, but Honey is a temptation he can barely resist. Meanwhile, Walter has decided he has a special destiny to fulfill, and draws his German spy ring friends into the plan, even though all of them are rolling their eyes over it.

As usual in an Elmore Leonard novel, we are treated to the inner thoughts and points of view of every character. It's especially well-done in this book, from the self-important Walter who bores everyone, to the hard-drinking Vera Mezwa and her creepy cross-dressing sidekick Bohdan. Most interesting and amusing was the prevailing attitude of the supposed German sympathizers who have largely grown bored with the Nazi agenda. Everyone is up to something, and their motivations all converge at the climax of the story, with Leonard's typical ironic touch. He has a way of making events come full circle that leaves me thinking about it with a smile for days afterwards.

I have been a huge Elmore Leonard fan since I first picked up Maximum Bob several years ago, and this is the best book he has written in years. It's better than its prequel, The Hot Kid, though I give Mr. Leonard kudos for bringing two different facets of American history to vivid life through the life of Carl Webster. It's almost impossible to describe the subtle way in which he breathes life into his characters and weaves his story through them, but I'm hooked! Elmore Leonard is the king of modern crime fiction, and this book is another jewel in the crown.

This was my first novel by Elmore Leonard. I was taking a few flights and the first of which had a 4 hour lay-over so I finished the book I had and picked up Up in Honey's Room. I read it everywhere I went, and as a testament to to how good it is- after getting to my final destination with a 5 and a half hour car ride home, I sat in the airport to finish the book.
I feel a lot of others covered the plot, but as someone who can't compare it to Leonard's work, amazing dark humor and very pulp material.

This is an "interesting" book--not "interesting" in the way that we politely characterize an artwork that is a complete muddle. It is interesting in the sense that one has difficulty imagining anyone but Elmore Leonard attempting it and, largely, pulling it off. Relatively harmless Nazi spies in Detroit?

As others have said, the plot is crisp, the writing deft, the characters enjoyable. Leonard re-introduces Carl Webster, the marshal from his novel THE HOT KID. Carl is an attractive character; here he meets Honey Deal, a very attractive character, in several senses of the word. It is really Honey's book, not Carl's, though his appearance is more than a cameo. Essentially, this is standard Leonard--feckless villains trying to get their inevitably-doomed act together. The best of the villains is Honey's former husband, now operating an illicit meat operation and dreaming of killing FDR with an airplane--the first Nazi kamikaze pilot.

The period details and the Detroit geography/topography are done expertly, of course, but the story never quite comes together. The war details are real; Nazis are real. When they are treated comically you get something more like Hogan's Heroes or The Producers. Here the mixture of serious elements with comic elements results in more of an emulsion than a brilliant new compound. The book is still readable and the characters are still memorable, but the novel's tones never quite come into synch.

Set mostly in Detroit, 'Up in Honey's Room' details the federal pursuit of a couple of escaped German prisoners-of-war late in WWII. The story plops down in the midst of a pack of oddball pro-Nazis, some German and some American.

Elmore Leonard brings many of his standard elements to 'Up in Honey's Room'. Deputy US Marshal Carl Webster returns as the outwardly stoic hero figure, a real man's man, but underneath also a real human being. There's the criminal who's not nearly as smart as he thinks and does something incredibly stupid and impulsive. There's the attractive, bold, funny, and slightly dangerous woman and a cast of other memorable characters. Leonard also displays his ear for language as he plays with accents and regional variations. So far, so good.

Up in Honey's Room goes badly off track with a couple of jaw-droppingly implausible conversations that lead to equally implausible relationships and decisions. Federal agents spilling the beans to Honey within 5 minutes of meeting her. A transvestite amidst the Nazi cabal barely causes a raised eyebrow.

Recommended only for fans of Elmore Leonard (of which I have been one for a long time).