Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories

by Elmore Leonard

Overview

“An excellent read….Concrete evidence of a master crime writer still at the top of his game.”
—Russel D. McLean, author of The Good Son

“The reigning King Daddy of crime writers” (Seattle Times), Elmore Leonard first introduced quick-triggered legendary lawman Carl Webster  in the New York Times bestseller, The Hot Kid, and brought him back for an encore Up in Honey’s Room. In Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories, the loose cannon U.S. marshal struts his stuff once more in three electrifying new tales. Comfort to the Enemy is more indisputable proof that Elmore Leonard is indeed, as Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) puts it, “The greatest crime writer who ever lived.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062029386
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	09/28/2010
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	114,479
File size:	968 KB

About the Author

Elmore Leonard wrote more than forty books during his long career, including the bestsellers Raylan, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool, Get Shorty, and Rum Punch, as well as the acclaimed collection When the Women Come Out to Dance, which was a New York Times Notable Book. Many of his books have been made into movies, including Get Shorty and Out of Sight. The short story "Fire in the Hole," and three books, including Raylan, were the basis for the FX hit show Justified. Leonard received the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN USA and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He died in 2013.

Hometown:

Bloomfield Village, Michigan

Date of Birth:

October 11, 1925

Place of Birth:

New Orleans, Louisiana

Education:

B.Ph., University of Detroit, 1950

Website:

http://www.elmoreleonard.com/

Editorial Reviews

Two linked short stories that provide a much-needed introduction to the title novella expand the legend of U.S. Marshall Carl Webster (The Hot Kid; Up in Honey's Room). The year is 1944, and Carl is back in his marshal uniform after recovering from an injury incurred while serving in the U.S. Navy. His assignment: to investigate the death of a German prisoner of war at Camp Deep Fork near his home in Oklahoma. Carl approaches the job patiently and methodically, displaying a maturity not readily apparent in his earlier "Hot Kid" years, yet he deals swiftly with a couple of paid gunmen when the time is right. A German POW who escapes and returns to camp at will, a beautiful prostitute who provides his motivation, a Jewish gangster who wants access to the POW camp, and a wannabe Hot Kid who is assigned to assist in the investigation test Carl's patience and his skills, providing both challenge and humor. VERDICT This volume is the logical next episode in the charmed life of one of Leonard's most famous characters, and Carl Webster fans will certainly clamor for this latest installment. [Oct. 11 marks Leonard's 85th birthday, and his 44th novel, Djibouti, also publishes this month.—Ed.]—Thomas L. Kilpatrick, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale

Library Journal

Two curtain-raisers and one extended tale bring back Deputy U.S. Marshal Carl Webster, the hero of The Hot Kid (2005) and Up in Honey's Room (2007).

Even mythic figures were kids once, and the first of these stories, "Showdown at Checotah," initiates Carlos Webster, the 15-year-old son of rancher Virgil Webster, by having him witness a robbery that turns lethal and yields revenge on the murderous robber. In "Louly and Pretty Boy," Carl meets his future wife, Louly Brown, who won't be available to marry him till she gets loose from minor-league gangster Joe Young and the much more consequential shadow of Pretty Boy Floyd. Despite Carl's matter-of-fact personal maxim—"If I have to pull my weapon I will shoot to kill"—Louly's deliverance comes from an unexpected quarter. Both these stories—deft, understated, violent and amusing—set the tone for "Comfort to the Enemy," in which Carl, now a ripe 38, is called back to Oklahoma to investigate the hanging of Willi Martz, a German POW at Deep Fork. Since Leonard's lawmen don't exactly excel at investigating, it's no surprise when Carl gets diverted into a search for perennial prison-camp escapee Jurgen Schrenk, who's clearly keeping company with Shemane Morrissey, a former Tulsa society daughter who lost some of her debutante's sheen when she was abducted for Teddy Ritz's Kansas City whorehouse. Carl has no trouble finding Jurgen, of course, but complications arise in the form of Teddy's two enforcers, the Tedesco brothers, who develop their own interest in Shemane and her German lover. As the cast members brush aside rumors of the death camps across the wide Atlantic, Carl, Jurgen, Shemane and Teddy constantly devise new ways to fraternize, efface the boundaries between good guys and bad guys and give aid and comfort to the enemy.

The ritualistically extended final story, originally serialized in the New York Times Magazine, marks Leonard's shaggiest hour to date. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Kirkus Reviews