Synopsis
The ambitions and desires of three men collide in this felicitous blend of Western and crime novel set in the 1930s. Carlos "Carl" Webster, an up-and-coming US marshal and crack shot, pursues Jack Belmont, an oilman's bad-seed son who aspires to become America's most notorious gangster; meanwhile, reporter Tony Antonelli writes up their exploits for True Detective Mystery magazine.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2005-05-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 312 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 20.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
Carl Webster, the hot kid of the marshals service, is polite, respects his elders, and can shoot a man driving away in an Essex at four hundred yards. Carl works out of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, federal courthouse during the 1930s, the period of America's most notorious bank robbers: Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson -- those guys. Carl wants to be America's most famous lawman. He shot his first felon when he was fifteen years old. With a Winchester. Louly Brown loves Carl but wants the world to think she is Pretty Boy Floyd's girlfriend. Tony Antonelli of True Detective magazine wants to write like Richard Harding Davis and wishes cute little Elodie wasn't a w****. She and Heidi and the girls work at Teddy's in Kansas City, where anything goes and the girls wear -- what else -- teddies. Jack Belmont wants to rob banks, become public enemy number one, and show his dad, an oil millionaire, he can make it on his own. With tommy guns, hot cars, speakeasies, cops and robbers, and a former lawman who believes in vigilante justice, all played out against the flapper period of gun molls and Prohibition, The Hot Kid is Elmore Leonard -- a true master -- at his best.
Industry Reviews
"Leonard's gentle epic is as restorative as a month in the country."
Kirkus (02/15/2005)
"Leonard's 40th novel...features characterizations so deft and true you can smell the hair oil on the dudes and the perfume on the dames....[I]t's all pure Leonard, and that means it's pure terrific." (starred review)
Publishers Weekly (03/28/2005)
"Whatever the author wants THE HOT KID to mean, its hottest kid turns out to be the one doing the writing."
New York Times - Janet Maslin (05/02/2005)
"As always, Leonard's prose seems effortless, his dialogue is perfect, and his humor is as dry as a moonshine martini....[A] terrific pleasure."
Booklist - Keir Graff (03/15/2005)
"Relentlessly stripped-down dialogue, laconic, fast and funny....Leonard has produced an affectionate, unsentimental history of bad times past. Racy, well-remembered, irresistible."
Literary Review - Philip Oakes (09/01/2005)
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