By: Elmore Leonard Publisher: HarperTorch Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: HarperTorch Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 400 Publication Date: September 01, 2006 Release Date: August 29, 2006
Carlos Webster was fifteen in the fall of 1921 the first time he came face-to-face with a nationally known criminal. A few weeks later, he killed his first man—a cattle thief who was rustling his dad's stock. Now Carlos, called Carl, is the hot kid of the U.S. Marshals Service, one of the elite manhunters currently chasing the likes of Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd across America's Depression-ravaged heartland. Carl wants to be the country's most famous lawman. Jack Belmont, the bent son of an oil millionaire, wants to be public enemy number one. Tony Antonelli of True Detective magazine wants to write about this world of cops and robbers, molls and speakeasies from perilously close up. Then there are the hot dames—Louly and Elodie—hooking their schemes and dreams onto dangerous men. And before the gunsmoke clears, everybody just might end up getting exactly what he or she wished for.
Amazon.com: 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
The best Leonard book I've read in ages. Not all that long ago, I was a devoted Leonard fan. I bought every book he wrote the day it was released. But something happened a few years ago. I didn't exactly fall out of love with him, but I just felt like his novels had lost a little something. The plots were a bit too meandering and redundant. It seemed, at least to me, that Leonard had started to coast.
I picked up "The Hot Kid" because it wasn't a modern crime story. I thought Leonard's last great book was "Cuba Libre," which was also a period piece.
And I'm incredibly glad I did pick up this book. It's as good as anything I've read from him. His trademark dialogue is fully on display and has never been better. Leonard gets an unbelievable amount of praise for his dialogue and in "The Hot Kid" it is fully deserved. It is casually funny and brilliantly dead-on perfect in tone.
Leonard creates one of his most memorable characters in U.S. Marshal Carlos Webster. Like most Leonard heroes, he's cool but sensible. He's a tough guy who will kill if he must, and yet he never goes into a situation without fully thinking it through and using logic instead of impulse.
In fact, this entire cast of characters is memorable. Even the minor characters shine right through. I loved Carlos' laid-back father and the relationship they had, as well as his eventual girlfriend Louly Brown.
And best of all, there's an actual plot here. One inspired by the realistic motivation of the characters and not just random events strung together. It has a thrilling ending (which also includes the final and best bit of hilarious dialogue).
Leonard did well to tell a story in this time period, with its various romanticized outlaws. Everything about it fits his style and heightens what he does. I found this book tremendously enjoyable and just had a ball reading it. It's the best Leonard book I've read in a long time, and one of his best ever.
Texas...Oops, Oklahoma ranger in the 30's This is the first book I have read by the author, so I didn't know what to expect. You are teleported into the 1930's, the dust bowl, Prohibition, whores and bizarre politics...you are there! In addition to the history lesson, the characters are intriguing, consistent in motivations and actions. Both Carlos and Jack are killing opposites. Carlos. lawman, is no saint, just a guy who takes his job seriously, with a bit of flare. Jack, well, is just plain straight from heck. But don't count out the girls in this story! The plot gets a bit slow...we kind of know the ending, but wait...maybe not EXACTly the way you thought it would go down. Overall a good read. Would read more of the author's books.
Not one of Leonard's best creations I am an avid Elmore Leonard fan. I have read probably two dozen of his books, and I consider some of those books to be among the best crime fiction ever written. This book, however, is not one of them. It is almost a throwback to one of his earlier books, "The Moonshine Wars," which was also set in the 1930s. Here Leonard moves away from the usual urban lowlifes, petty criminals, and police detectives of our modern big cities and retreats to the depression-era midwest in which a slew of petty criminals achieved notoriety, and often an early death, by robbing banks. Mention is made of Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, and Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. But they are mentioned only in passing. To move the story along, Leonard creates two fictional antagonists: Carl Webster, a US Marshal, and Jack Belmont, the son of a wealthy father, who decides to turn to a life of crime. There are several interesting plot twists, but the outcome is inevitable and predictable. What is missing here is Leonard's ear for dialogue that characterizes his urban novels. But even lesser Leonard is still a pretty good read.
Just wonderful This refers to the CD version of the "Hot Kid": Arliss Howard seems to wring every nuance out of this terrific Leonard novel. So rich.
Carlos is Coming Pretty Boy Floyd This novel is Elmore Leonard's "Pretty Boy Floyd", only the " Hot Kid" is U.S. Marshal Carl Webster. This story seems to be one of dogs fighting wolves in human terms. The author is a scholar who has done his homework on names and dates. This wild depression era of the popular bank robbers is told from a cop's point of view. About hard men and real people this is a very readable book in which Elmore Leonard comes down on the diametrically opposite side he took in "Valdez is Coming" Valdez Is Coming and is probably better even than Pretty Boy Floyd in plot and content.
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