Synopses & Reviews
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. They even share the same birthday.
Honey Deal, Walter's American wife, doesn't know that Walter is a member of a spy ring that sends U.S. war production data to Germany and gives shelter to escaped German prisoners of war. But she's tired of telling him jokes he doesn't understand it's time to get a divorce.
Along comes Carl Webster, the hot kid of the Marshals Service. He's looking for Jurgen Schrenk, a former Afrika Korps officer who escaped from a POW camp in Oklahoma. Carl's pretty sure Walter's involved with keeping Schrenk hidden, so Carl gets to know Honey, hoping she'll take him to Walter. Carl then meets Vera Mezwa, the nifty Ukrainian head of the spy ring who's better looking than Mata Hari, and her tricky lover Bohdan with the Buster Brown haircut and a sly way of killing.
Honey's a free spirit; she likes the hot kid marshal and doesn't much care that he's married. But all Carl wants is to get Jurgen Schrenk without getting shot. And then there's Otto the Waffen-SS major who runs away with a nice Jewish girl. It's Elmore Leonard's world gritty, funny, and full of surprises.
Review
"It's as if the best of Mel Brooks and Quentin Tarantino were refined into something altogether finer and purer....If there is a little more slapstick and a little less crime here than usual, it hardly matters. The talk's the thing. Leonard hooks you with his first quotation mark." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"Now in his 80s, and with 43 books to his credit, Leonard springs eternal. His new novel...is both enterprising and lively." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Fast moving, cold-blooded and comic, the action swerves and leaps from one character's adventure to another's, bringing echoes of the major events and everyday life of Detroit and America in the 1940s." Rocky Mountain News
Review
"Leonard's novels give you a better feel for America than any of the brooding fictional meditations on the emptiness of suburbia come close to doing....Leonard also has a keener eye for the absurd than any French existentialist has ever had. To wit: He never, ever fails to see the humor in it." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"Leonard clearly loves these characters, and makes their interactions believable and a blast to read." Boston Globe
Review
"Leonard's dialogue is so sharp and jazzy that it's a pleasure listening to his people zing each other into submission." Oregonian
Review
"I'm not going to say that this is the best novel Elmore Leonard ever wrote, or even that it's in his top 10. But reading Up in Honey's Room is like dancing with the stars, and he's the star." Washington Post
Synopsis
Up in Honey's Room is the newest novel in a string of critically acclaimed bestsellers from the renowned master of American crime fiction. Leonard brings his talent for characterization, rich ear for dialogue, and piercing insight to a gripping story set in the years of World War II.
About the Author
Elmore Leonard has written more than three dozen critically acclaimed books during his highly successful career, including the bestsellers The Hot Kid, Mr. Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty, and Rum Punch. Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Bloomfield Village, Michigan.