Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories

by Elmore Leonard

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The first two stories here are excerpted from The Hot Kid but, instead of minding, I did the exact opposite of mind. It was just what I wanted, to check back in on Louly, Virgil, and Carl.

“Comfort to the Enemy,” the novella proper, is what’s worth the price of admission. It’s such a rich follow-up to these characters, so fun and effortless. A German POW camp, some Oklahoma gangsters, a whore or two with a heart of gold. There’s something weighty here, which is a little unusual for Elmore, writing around the edges of Hitler and the Holocaust. But it’s candid and refreshing as always and, as humor always is, probably truer-than-true to the heart of the matter.

This means I’ve got to go track down Up In Honey’s Room now, don’t I?