The Hot Kid

Starred review from March 28, 2005
Leonard's 40th novel, set in the world of 1930s gangsters and gun molls, features characterizations so deft and true you can smell the hair oil on the dudes and the perfume on the dames. Young Carlos Webster tangles with his first gangster at 15, when bank robber Emmet Long robs an Okmulgee, Okla., store, kills an Indian policeman and takes away Carlos's ice cream cone. Seven years later, Carlos, now Carl, a newly minted deputy U.S. marshal, gets his revenge by gunning Long down, an act that wins him the respect of his employers and the adulation of the American public, who follow his every quick-draw exploit in the papers and True Detective
magazine. Cinematically, Leonard introduces his characters—Carl's colorful pecan-farmer father, Virgil; Jack Belmont, ne'er-do-well son of a rich oilman; True Detective
writer Tony Antonelli; Louly Brown, whose cousin marries Pretty Boy Floyd—in small, self-contained scenes. As the novel moves forward, these characters and others begin to interact, forming liaisons both romantic and criminal. At the stirring conclusion, scores are settled and the good and the bad get sorted out in satisfactorily violent fashion. The writing is pitch-perfect throughout: "It was his son's quiet tone that made Virgil realize, My Lord, but this boy's got a hard bark on him." The setting and tone fall somewhere between Leonard's early westerns and his more recent crime novels, but it's all pure Leonard, and that means it's pure terrific. Agent, Andrew Wiley.

July 11, 2005
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. Simultaneous release with Morrow hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 28).