Book Review: The Hot Kid

Back in 2002 I read my way through the works of Elmore Leonard, who began his writing career with westerns and ended up writing some of most interesting crime novels I've ever come across. His dialogue was snappy, his characters intriguing, and I was never sure when I started one of his books whether the good guys would win or not.

At the time I read all of his works from his first novel, The Bounty Hunters (1953), up to his kids book A Coyote's in the House (2004). I was clearly reading at a much faster pace than my current "one book a month" style. At the point I caught up with him, I moved on to my next author and figured I would keep up as new books came out.

Turns out I didn't, and when the author passed in 2011 I still had six books to go, At the time I was working through Robert R. McCammon's books, and afterwards I switched to Richard Matheson and then Charles de Lint, so it was only now I've managed to begin catching up.

The Hot Kid is a prohibition-era crime story following a U.S. Marshall named Carl Webster as he tracks down a number of bank robbers. He plays on the bank robber's need for attention and tries very hard to bring them in alive. The novel follows both Carl's story and that of the villain, Jack Belmont, the son of a rich man who desperately wants to become a John Dillenger-level criminal.

The novel is fast-paced, fun, and feels like a fun throwback to his western novels. Well worth the read.

You Owe it to yourself #6: Reading your favourite Author more effectively

One morning while reading the paper I was struck by an interesting idea - what if you read all of an author's books in chronological order? Would it change your perception of the world? Would it change me from a black-and-white '50s Dad into some sort of demented bookmonkey? Only one was to find out.

I started the habit back in 2003 - never having read any crime fiction I thougt I would try some Elmore Leonard, and more specifically, I would read his books in the order he wrote them. I had just finished reading all of Louis L'Amour and as Leonard started with Westerns before he moved to crime fiction, I figured it would simply be a fun couple of months reading.

6 months and 40 novels later, my reading habits had changed. I was hooked on reading authors in publication order.

What I noticed as I went through Elmore Leonard's books (his first novel, The Bounty Hunters, was published in 1953) was that over time, the quality improved. I love his early stuff (again, big fan of westerns - thanks Mom), but by reading his books in order I could see that over time his pacing, his descriptions and his already amazing dialogue just get better and better.

I only had two problems with my experiment: first, reading 40 books of a similar style and tone in 6 months kind of made all their plots run together, secondly, it felt really cool to read an author like that, really, REALLY cool - I had to do it again.

The next author I tried this with (starting in July of 2004) was Terry Pratchett, and to solve my first problem I limited myself to one book of his a month. I just caught up with him this spring (March 2009). Pratchett wrote his first book - The Carpet People, when he was 17 years old, so again, over the course of nearly 50 books and 30+ years I got to see the evolution of a writer.

Since then I've done the same with a few more writers - Lois McMaster-Bujold, Michael Crichton, Robert B. Parker, Pierre Burton, and Robert R. McCammon, next up is Canadian fantasy author Charles De Lint.

The rewards are great - especially if you are personally looking to get into writing yourself. What I do not recommend is doing this with an untested author - often their first book is the worst place to start - read something you've heard good things about first, and once you've decided you want to commit, then you can go back to the beginning.

It'll show you a lot of stuff about the writer you might not have noticed before, which will make you appear much smarter (and slightly annoying) to your friends and family.

If you've already done this - congrats - get yourself a celebratory piece of cake and send me a comment letting me know about your experience, otherwise give it a try, after all, you owe it to yourself.