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The Bounty Hunters
The Law at Randado
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Last Stand at Saber River
Hombre
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Valdez is Coming
Forty Lashes Less One
Mr. Majestyk
Fifty-Two Pickup
Swag
Unknown Man No. 89
The Hunted
The Switch
Gunsights
City Primeval
Gold Coast
Split Images
Cat Chaser
Stick
Labrava
Glitz
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Touch
Freaky Deaky
Killshot
Get Shorty
Maximum Bob
Rum Punch
Pronto
Riding the Rap
Out of Sight
Cuba Libre
Be Cool
Pagan Babies
Tishomingo Blues
Mr. Paradise
A Coyote’s in the House
The Hot Kid
Comfort to the Enemy
Up in Honey’s Room
Road Dogs
Djibouti
Raylan

Stories

The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories
When the Women Come Out to Dance
Trail of the Apache
Apache Medicine
You Never See Apaches…
Red Hell Hits Canyon Diablo
The Colonel’s Lady
Law of the Hunted One
Cavalry Boots
Under the Friar’s Ledge
The Rustlers
Three Ten to Yuma
The Big Hunt
Long Night
The Boy Who Smiled
The Hard Way
The Last Shot
Blood Money
Trouble at Rindo’s Station
Saint with a Six-Gun
The Captives
No Man’s Guns
The Rancher’s Lady
Jugged
Moment of Vengeance
Man with the Iron Arm
The Longest Day of his Life
The Nagual
The Kid
The Treasure of Mungo’s Landing
The Bull Ring at Blisston
Only Good Ones
The Tonto Woman
Hurrah for Captain Early
Karen Makes Out
The Odyssey
Sparks
Hanging Out at the Buena Vista
Fire in the Hole
Chickasaw Charlie Hoke
When the Women Come Out to Dance
Tenkiller
Showdown at Checotah
Louly and Pretty Boy
Chick Killer (2011)
Ice Man

Film and TV

Moment of Vengeance
3:10 to Yuma
The Tall T
Hombre
The Big Bounce (I)
The Moonshine War
Valdez is Coming
Joe Kidd
Mr. Majestyk
High Noon, Part II
Stick
52 Pickup
Desperado
The Rosary Murders
Glitz (TV)
Cat Chaser
Border Shootout
Split Images
Get Shorty
Last Stand at Saber River
Pronto
Touch
Elmore Leonard’s Gold Coast (TV)
Jackie Brown
Maximum Bob
Out of Sight
Karen Sisco
The Big Bounce (II)
Be Cool (2005)
The Ambassador
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Killshot (2009)
Freaky Deaky
The Tonto Woman
Sparks
Justified
Life of Crime

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Hong Kong Review of The Hot Kid

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South China Morning Post
Charmaine Chan


The Hot Kid
by Elmore Leonard
HarperCollins, HK$95

Elmore Leonard is a master when it comes to pace - not to mention dialogue, characters and setting. Just how skillful he is in all these departments can be seen in The Hot Kid, the 80-year-old author’s 40th or so novel. The protagonist of the title is Car(los) Webster of the US Marshals Service.

His father is a rich oil man by accident and pecan farmer by choosing. Their foils are the bank robber Jack Belmont and his father, another

black-gold millionaire. Set in depression-scarred Oklahoma, the novel entertains with robbers, molls and speakeasies - the subject of interest of one Tony Antonelli of True Detective magazine. It’s to this crime hack that Webster partly owes his fame, although he’s undeniably good with a gun, bad with felons and smooth with the ladies. Written with a keen ear,

although some sentences would have benefited from closer editing,

The Hot Kid is rollicking fun until the inevitable showdown between Webster and Belmont. Who wins ultimately determines the way in which readers will think of the book: as a prolonged chuckle or a tragedy in disguise.

The underlined part cracks me up.

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