Carl Webster

Set in Oklahoma during the 1930s, The Hot Kid is a powerfully entertaining story and introduces Carl Webster, one of the coolest lawmen ever to draw on a fugitive felon. At 21, Carl Webster's on his way to becoming the most famous Deputy US Marshal in America. He has shot and killed notorious bank robber Emmet Long and is now tracking Jack Belmont, the no-good son of an oil millionaire with dreams of becoming Public Enemy Number One.

Carl Webster, the hot kid of the marshals service, is polite, respects his elders, and can shoot a man driving away in an Essex at 400 yards. Carl works out of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, federal courthouse during the 1930s, the period of America's most notorious bank robbers: Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson...those guys.

The odd thing about Walter Schoen, German born but now running a butcher shop in Detroit, he's a dead ringer for Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and the Gestapo. Honey Deal, Walter's American wife, doesn't know that Walter is a member of a spy ring and gives shelter to escaped German POWs. But she's tired of telling him jokes he doesn't understand; it's time for a divorce.

The odd thing about Walter Schoen is he's a dead ringer for Heinrich Himmler. Walter is a member of a spy ring that sends US war production data to Germany and gives shelter to escaped German prisoners of war. Honey Deal, Walter's American wife, has given up trying to make him over as a regular guy. She decides it's time to stop telling him jokes he doesn't understand and get a divorce. Along comes Carl Webster, the Hot Kid of the Marshals Service, looking for an escaped POW. Carl uses Honey to meet Walter, who Carl believes is hiding the POW.

The "Hot Kid" of the U.S. Marshals Service, Carl Webster maintains the law with a cool, showdown attitude. He's one of the richest creations in Elmore Leonard's half century of delivering the goods. From his appearances in the critically acclaimed novels The Hot Kid and Up in Honey's Room, Carl returns to lay down the law in a novella that originally appeared as a serial in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.