Review: Up in Honey’s Room by Elmore Leonard

Today, in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor David Abrams reviews Up in Honey’s Room by Elmore Leonard. Says Abrams:

It’s usually futile to try and describe an Elmore Leonard plot. It’s like listing the ingredients of sausage -- there are so many different things packed in there, but all you really care about is how it tastes. Up in Honey’s Room is set in 1944 Detroit, where Carl has tracked down two German POWs who have escaped from a camp in Oklahoma. The pair are hiding out at a meat-processing farm run by Walter Schoen, who is a dead ringer for German SS commander Heinrich Himmler. Walter’s ex-wife is Honey Deal (as in “a honey of a deal”), who likes to walk around her apartment topless when Carl shows up to question her about Walter’s German friends. She’s got “bedroom eyes and that lower lip waiting there for him to bite.” Leonard also throws in a spy ring, a plot to assassinate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ribald jokes and over-consumption of booze and cigarettes.

The full review is here.