BooksForABuck.com source for affordable electronic fiction



Search
Booksforabuck

Powered by FreeFind


Site search
Web search

    Review of THE HOT KID by Elmore Leonard (see his website)

    William Morrow, May 2005

    Carlos (Carl) Webster sees his first murder at fifteen. A year later, he kills his first man--a cattle rustler trying to steal his herd. When he turns eighteen, he joins the marshall's service. Carl gains a reputation as a man who keeps his cool, but who shoots to kill. Jack Belmont is just a bad guy. When he was a kid, he let his sister nearly drown. Later, he tried to blackmail his father, kidnapped his father's girlfriend, and blew up one of his father's oil storage tanks. Louly Brown had a crush on Pretty Boy Floyd, but he never paid much attention to her. Her brief career as a gun moll doesn't last long when the police, led by Carl Webster, track down the man she's running with.

    Set in prohibition America and the depression, THE HOT KID explores a period of American history when Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and Pretty Boy Floyd were active, when gangsters were romantic, and when mobs ruled cities. Author Elmore Leonard (see more BooksForABuck.com reviews of novels by Leonard) spins a deceptively involving story about men who don't say much, who live larger than life, and who keep their cool.

    In Leonard's stories, no one is completely good and conventional morality is badly bent. While no one is good, there are those who are completely bad. It is a compelling and disturbing world. Leonard ups the emotional intensity as Jack increasingly disorganizes in his attempt to carve out a place for himself in a world where criminals glory in becoming America's Most Wanted.

    Warning: THE HOT KID is hard to put down. I sat down to read it and pretty much didn't do anything else all day.

    Four Stars

    Reviewed 5/21/05

    Ready to buy it now? Click the buy now button.

    Visit Amazon.com to read more reviews or to purchase THE HOT KID from Amazon.com

    Rather buy it from Barnes and Noble?
    Click this link for THE HOT KID from Barnes & Noble.com

    Buy the eBook version from Fictionwise.com

    What do you think? Too generous? Too stingy? Or did I miss the entire point? Send your comments to publisher@booksforabuck.com. Give me the okay to use your name and I'll publish all the comments that fit (and don't use unprintable language).

    Check out the Alexa toolbar. It blocks pop-ups (you get to choose), it's free, and it tells you about what websites are popular and who owns them.