Venice reads Elmore
Elmore's latest crime novel is getting great reviews, like this one from Charles Taylor in Newsday, and I loved it, too -- it's a wild, hilarious, sexy ride through 40s Detroit with U.S. Marshall Carl Webster, a hottie named Honey, Heinrich Himmler's unknown twin brother, a cross-dressing killer, and a German spy ring.
I always love Elmore's treatment of women characters. Honey's especially great. And she's really the one in charge here, in a whole lot of ways. (The smartest women know that that doesn't take brawn or a badge.) Accordingly, you gotta love how Honey enters a room:
She stuck out her right arm in the Nazi salute to show she had come in peace—with no intention of causing trouble—and said, "Sieg Heil, y’all. I’m Honey Deal."
Get your copy of "Up In Honey's Room" here.
And, if you want to see and hear Elmore personally, you're in luck, because he'll be talking at Andrea Grossman's Writers Bloc on Friday, interviewed by Walter Mirisch.
Details: Friday, May 25, 2007 at the Writer's Guild Theatre, 135 South Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20. Reservations here. Scroll down.
More about "Up In Honey's Room" and Elmore at elmoreleonard.com.
I like Leonard's ladies, too. They're smart, funny, ballsy (because ovarysy just doesn't look or sound right), sexy, and somehow very, very real.
Rebecca at May 23, 2007 3:00 PM
I love that he made Carl Webster's wife Louly a gunnery instructor. She's just mentioned in this one, but the other female characters -- like Countess Vera Mezwa, are a scream.
Amy Alkon at May 23, 2007 3:49 PM
I think Elmore's women are inspirational. So are Carl Hiaasen's. If you haven't read any Hiaasen yet, you should. His female characters have those same qualities in spades.
Every time I put one of their books down, I vow to act more like them on a certain level (all but the gunplay, kidnapping and assault, that is) and stand up for myself.
Rebecca at May 23, 2007 4:08 PM
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