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Up in Honey's Room | 
 enlarge | Author: Elmore Leonard
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: £5.58
Buy Used: £0.33
You Save: £5.25 (94%)
New (1) Used (22) from £0.33
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 320413
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0060724269
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060724269
ASIN: 0060724269
Publication Date: May 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not his best but better than everyone else. March 3, 2008
B. Cooper (england)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
If you've never read Elmore Leonard before this isnt the book to start with. Go and buy 'La Brava' or '52 Pick Up' or 'Get Shorty' or 'Out Of Sight' and come back once they have you hooked.
The latest in the Webster Saga (the main character here and his various family members have appeared in 'Cuba Libre', 'The Hot Kid' and short story 'Tenkiller')this book is different from anything Leonard has written previously.
This book is light, not a great deal happens and it lacks the urgency and pace of his best work.
That said the characters are well drawn, the dialouge typically sharp and the action (when it comes) written as well as ever.
Dealing with a US Marshal tracking escaped German POWs is 1945 Detroit and coming across a German spy-ring the book seems like Mr. Leonard exploring something that interested and amused himself without worrying about his audience, and I for one am happy to see him enjoying his work after over three dozen novels.
So, all in all, not his best but a worthy addition if only for the variety. And lets face it, this man could write a phone directory and make it exciting.
 Plodding Period Pulp October 12, 2007
A. Ross (Washington, DC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Even though I thought "The Hot Kid" was one of the worst of the fifteen or so Leonard books I've read, I picked this sequel up, hoping for an improvement. Unfortunately, it's pretty much more of the same -- a period pulper with few of the twists and turns that make much of Leonard's other works so engaging. Once again, his dexterity with dialogue is mostly held in check by the desire to recreate period speech and slang. Set about a decade after the events in "The Hot Kid", we are reintroduced to U.S. Marshall Carl Franklin, here on the trail of a pair of escaped German POWs who've made their way to Detroit during the waning days of WWII. One of the problems with the book is that since Carl became friendly with one of the two POWs down in Oklahoma, he seems largely ambivalent about actually catching them. Instead, he becomes entangled with the titular Honey, a gorgeous and sharp young woman who used to be married to a butcher who may be helping to hide the two escapees.
From here, the story just keeps wandering, as we meet other members of a pro-German underground cadre, including a Ukrainian spy and her cross-dressing houseboy/lover, a local doctor, and a southern tycoon. Aside from Honey, none of these characters have the snap or bite of Leonard's typical supporting casts. He relies on flashy superficialities rather than building interesting characters. For example, the butcher's remarkable resemblance to Heinrich Himmler more or less drives everything else about him. One of the the escapees has a yen to become a professional bull rider on the rodeo circuit. (Meanwhile, the other is kind of an inside joke. Named Otto Penzler -- in honor of the legendary mystery genre editor, bookstore owner, and publisher -- the character dreams of opening a bookshop selling only mysteries.... Wink, wink.) And underneath his cross-dressing, even the villain of the story is basically a straightforward sociopath.
In any event, the main drama comes from the will-they-or-won't-they banter between Carl and Honey. Carl's pledged to stay truth to his Marine gunny wife, while Honey is trying to pick between Carl and the wannabe cowboy POW. Sure, there's some shooting and killing along the way, but none of it seems all that important to Carl (or the reader).
Comic Look at "The Enemy" May 29, 2007
Donald Mitchell (Boston)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Fans of The Hot Kid will like Up in Honey's Room much better than those who read Up in Honey's Room as a standalone novel. A good part of the book's appeal is in comparing Carl (Carlos) Webster's straight-shooting integrity with the slippery morals of the Nazi sympathizers in Up in Honey's Room.
Reading the book reminded me of the movie version of The Maltese Falcon where the greedy characters are often played for laughs while Sam Spade looks on with apparent disinterest . . . but with an intense desire to see justice done. Naturally, Carl Webster is in the Sam Spade role.
So how does Carl get involved with a bunch of Nazi sympathizers? It's simpler than it sounds: Carl is tracking down two escaped POWs: Jurgen Schrenk, a former Panzer captain for Rommel in North Africa, who is from Detroit originally, and Otto Penzler, an SS officer who did many dirty deeds in World War II. Carl figures that they must be in Detroit, or they would have been caught by now. He's right. Jurgen had tracked down an old friend, staunch pro-Nazi Walter Schoen, who runs a butcher shop in Detroit who has hidden the two men.
From there, Elmore Leonard delights in presenting you with the most amazing ironies that take a simple story into the happier realms of comedy. Walter is a look-alike for Heinrich Himmler, a resemblance that thrills Walter. He loves to tell people that the two men were born in the same hospital on the same day . . . surely they are twins who were separated at birth. Naturally, that means that Walter is overjoyed to have Otto around because of his SS background.
Walter is now acting as part of a spy ring for the Nazis . . . and once you meet the other members of the ring you'll be sure to understand why the Allies won World War II. There's the racist, Joe Aubrey, who fathered an African-American child and looks forward to sending his son to college. The leader and most dangerous member of the ring is Vera Mezwa who is a Ukrainian who claims to have been married to a Polish count who was killed by the Nazis. Her houseman, Bohdan Kravchencko, another Ukrainian, is a triple agent who is pretending to help the FBI keep track of the ring. He's a bi-sexual who escaped from a Nazi labor camp by knifing guards. Bohdan favors dressing in women's clothes and has a violent streak when he isn't bedding Vera. There's also the Hitler-loving Dr. Taylor who provides invisible ink for the spy reports.
So who's Honey? She's Walter's ex-wife. Carl feels like he can work with Honey to get access to Walter and the rest of the spies . . . and maybe find the two escapees. Honey provides much of the contrast in the story. She's very American even though her appearance makes Walter feel like she's a perfect German. He even fails to notice that she's not a natural blond, even after being married for a year.
Honey likes men and she would just love to get closer to Carl. But Carl's determined to stay faithful to his wife. How will they do together?
I won't tell you any more, but you'll be bowled over by a very funny irony about every third page. It's great fun!
The story is a little too goofy to be taken seriously and not quite funny enough to be a total comedy. That's why I graded it at four stars rather than five. If you haven't read the Hot Kid, you may only think it's a three star book.
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