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Summary
Summary
Carl Webster, the hot kid of the marshals service, works out of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, federal courthouse during the 1930s. 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 whore. Jack Belmont wants to rob banks and become public enemy number one. 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.
Author Notes
Elmore John Leonard, Jr. 10/11/25 -- 8/20/13 Elmore John Leonard, Jr., popularly known as mystery and western writer Elmore Leonard, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 11, 1925. He served in the United States Naval Reserve from 1943 to 1946. He received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Detroit in 1950. After graduating, he wrote short stories and western novels as well as advertising and education film scripts. In 1967, he began to write full-time and received several awards including the 1977 Western Writers of America award and the 1984 Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe award. His other works include Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Hombre, Mr. Majestyk, 3:10 to Yuma, and Rum Punch. Many of his works were adapted into movies.
Library of America recently announced plans to publish the first of a three-volume collection of his books beginning in the Fall of 2014. Leonard died on August 20, 2013 from complications of a stroke he had earlier. He was 87 years old.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Guardian Review
TOklahoma, 1933: the Depression is at its most severe, the Volstead Act has yet to be repealed and corruption is rife. In his latest novel, Elmore Leonard uses this setting - the dustbowl, mining towns, oilfields, speakeasies, cathouses and the Ku Klux Klan - to produce a spectacular fusion of American myth and reality. Both the lawman Carl Webster and psychotic bank-robber Jack Belmont, the renegade son of a wealthy oilman, consciously ape what they see at the movies. There is a general obsession with famous criminals such as John Dillinger and Pretty-Boy Floyd, the gun molls happily sell their stories to the newspapers, and everyone wants to be famous. Webster, the marshal (slogan: If I have to pull my weapon, I'll shoot to kill) who bagged his first cattle rustler at the age of 15, even has his own Boswell in the shape of Tony Antonelli, who stands on the sidelines during shoot-outs and calmly takes notes before conducting post-match interviews. This tale of ur-tabloid culture in a savage country is utterly convincing, and Leonard's refreshingly terse, sharp prose makes for an exhilarating read. Caption: article-Leonard.1 TOklahoma, 1933: the Depression is at its most severe, the Volstead Act has yet to be repealed and corruption is rife. In his latest novel, Elmore Leonard uses this setting - the dustbowl, mining towns, oilfields, speakeasies, cathouses and the Ku Klux Klan - to produce a spectacular fusion of American myth and reality. - Laura Wilson.
Library Journal Review
True Detective writer Tony Antonelli can't wait to tell the story of Carl Webster, a rising young deputy marshal in 1930s Oklahoma. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Hot Kid Chapter One Carlos Webster was fifteen the day he witnessed the robbery and killing at Deering's drugstore. This was in the fall of 1921 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He told Bud Maddox, the Okmulgee chief of police, he had driven a load of cows up to the yard at Tulsa and by the time he got back it was dark. He said he left the truck and stock trailer across the street from Deering's and went inside to get an ice cream cone. When he identified one of the robbers as Emmett Long, Bud Maddox said, "Son, Emmett Long robs banks, he don't bother with drugstores no more." Carlos had been raised on hard work and respect for his elders. He said, "I could be wrong," knowing he wasn't. They brought him over to police headquarters in the courthouse to look at photos. He pointed to Emmett Long staring at him from a $500 wanted bulletin and picked the other one, Jim Ray Monks, from mug shots. Bud Maddox said, "You're positive, huh?" and asked Carlos which one was it shot the Indian. Meaning Junior Harjo with the tribal police, who'd walked in not knowing the store was being robbed. "Was Emmett Long shot him," Carlos said, "with a forty-five Colt." "You sure it was a Colt?" "Navy issue, like my dad's." "I'm teasing," Bud Maddox said. He and Carlos' dad, Virgil Webster, were buddies, both having fought in the Spanish-American War and for a number of years were the local heroes. But now doughboys were back from France telling about the Great War over there. "If you like to know what I think happened," Carlos said, "Emmett Long only came in for a pack of smokes." Bud Maddox stopped him. "Tell it from the time you got there." Okay, well, the reason was to get an ice cream cone. "Mr. Deering was in back doing prescriptions -- he looked out of that little window and told me to help myself. So I went over to the soda fountain and scooped up a double dip of peach on a sugar cone and went to the cigar counter and left a nickel by the cash register. That's where I was when I see these two men come in wearing suits and hats I thought at first were salesmen. Mr. Deering calls to me to wait on them as I know the store pretty well. Emmett Long comes up to the counter -- " "You knew right away who he was?" "Once he was close, yes sir, from pictures of him in the paper. He said to give him a deck of Luckies. I did and he picks up the nickel I'd left by the register. Hands it to me and says, 'This ought to cover it.' " "You tell him it was yours?" "No sir." "Or a pack of Luckies cost fifteen cents?" "I didn't say a word to him. But see, I think that's when he got the idea of robbing the store, the cash register sitting there, nobody around but me holding my ice cream cone. Mr. Deering never came out from the back. The other one, Jim Ray Monks, wanted a tube of Unguentine, he said for a heat rash was bothering him, under his arms. I got it for him and he didn't pay either. Then Emmett Long says, 'Let's see what you have in the register.' I told him I didn't know how to open it as I didn't work there. He leans over the counter and points to a key -- the man knows his cash registers -- and says, 'That one right there. Hit it and she'll open for you.' I press the key -- Mr. Deering must've heard it ring open, he calls from the back of the store, 'Carlos, you able to help them out?' Emmett Long raised his voice saying, 'Carlos is doing fine,' using my name. He told me then to take out the scrip but leave the change." "How much did he get?" "No more'n thirty dollars," Carlos said. He took his time thinking about what happened right after, starting with Emmett Long looking at his ice cream cone. Carlos saw it as personal, something between him and the famous bank robber, so he skipped over it, telling Bud Maddox: "I put the money on the counter for him, mostly singles. I look up -- " "Junior Harjo walks in," Bud Maddox said, "a robbery in progress." "Yes sir, but Junior doesn't know it. Emmett Long's at the counter with his back to him. Jim Ray Monks is over at the soda fountain getting into the ice cream. Neither of them had their guns out, so I doubt Junior saw it as a robbery. But Mr. Deering sees Junior and calls out he's got his mother's medicine. Then says for all of us to hear, 'She tells me they got you raiding Indian stills, looking for moonshine.' He said something about Junior setting a jar aside for him and that's all I heard. Now the guns are coming out, Emmett Long's Colt from inside his suit . . . I guess all he had to see was Junior's badge and his sidearm, that was enough, Emmett Long shot him. He'd know with that Colt one round would do the job, but he stepped up and shot Junior again, lying on the floor." There was a silence. "I'm trying to recall," Bud Maddox said, "how many Emmett Long's killed. I believe six, half of 'em police officers." "Seven," Carlos said, "you count the bank hostage had to stand on his running board. Fell off and broke her neck?" "I just read the report on that one," Bud Maddox said. "Was a Dodge Touring, same as Black Jack Pershing's staff car over in France." "They drove away from the drugstore in a Packard," Carlos said, and gave Bud Maddox the number on the license plate. The Hot Kid . Copyright © by Elmore Leonard. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Hot Kid: A Novel by Elmore Leonard All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
