Plenty of characters in Leonard's 'Room'
Up in Honey’s Room
By Elmore Leonard
William Morrow, 304 pp., $25.95
It's 1944 and the Allies are winning World War II, but two escaped German prisoners of war could still cause some damage. Especially if they've made their way from their Oklahoma detention camp to Detroit, where a spy ring led by a Ukrainian countess and her transvestite lover remains up and running. Luckily, ace US marshal Carl Webster (back from 2005's "The Hot Kid") is on their trail, and has enlisted the aid of Honey Deal, the beautiful bottle-blond ex-wife of a Nazi-loving German-American butcher, who just happens to be a dead ringer for Heinrich Himmler .
What happens next is not really the point. As Elmore Leonard gets into the quirky characters and bizarre personalities in "Up in Honey's Room," his 40th novel, he makes it clear that plot is much less important than the people who inhabit it. In his trademark sharp and funny style, Leonard throws in some more ringers -- Honey's ex-con brother, Darcy, and a racist Southern millionaire, for starters -- and lets them interact, whether their connections further the plot or hinder it. The contact is key, as characters recognize each other in department stores and gather in each other's homes for cocktails and gunplay.
There is a story here: The Germans and the spies have all more or less reconciled themselves to the fact that they are losing the war. As they readjust their expectations, they are instead trying to figure out how to weather their side's defeat, and how to give themselves the softest possible landings. Only Walter Schoen, Honey's ex, doesn't see the inevitable coming. As he plans his final grand and futile gesture of solidarity with the country he left at age 13, he pushes the buttons of all those around him, from the escaped prisoners of war to the older German-American couple to whom he has given a home.
But if Walter propels the most straight crime fiction element of this story, he's far from this book's star. That's Honey. Although she's not politically naive, the Southern-girl survivor has got her own agenda. She was bored by Walter, but still harbors a certain sympathy for him. She's much more interested in the very married Carl, and enjoys the attention of just about any male, including enemy combatants, provided they're cute. As the crime aspects of this book chug along, it's this personal interplay that percolates as Honey's numerous flirtations spark the otherwise silly story with real heat. Honey is lonely, gorgeous, smart, and honest, most of all with herself. She makes things happen.
Leonard clearly loves these characters, and makes their interactions believable and a blast to read. With Dashiell Hammett-type wit, if not the noir master's dark sensibility, he has once again created characters who live far beyond their story lines. In fact, like Hammett's Nick and Nora Charles, much of their humor comes out of cocktail party chat. "Please get me out of here before I become an alcoholic," says one character, prompting the response: "You already are." "I count my drinks," responds the not-overly-worried drinker. "I never have more than twenty-five in a day."
At times, as entertaining as they are, Leonard's silly and sparkling one-on-ones reach beyond even fictional credibility. Among other absurdities, the author at one point has lawman Webster befriending one of the prisoners, the handsome cowboy-wannabe Jurgen Schrenk in a blatant disregard for duty. (The other POW is named, in a nod to the famous mystery editor and bookstore owner, Otto Penzler .) It's a stretch that even the author's justly famed style can barely accommodate, despite all the good times to be had "Up in Honey's Room."
Clea Simon is a freelance writer and the author of "Cattery Row." 