I love Elmore Leonard, but Up In Honey’s Room might be the first of his books that I’ve found disappointing. It might be due to the fact that he keeps referencing another one of his books (The Hot Kid) all the way through it; if I’d known that this was a follow-up to that novel I would have read it first. Or it might be because the characters just don’t pop the way they do in books like Rum Punch, Mr. Majestyk, or Out of Sight. The story’s interesting enough: a top-notch FBI agent tries to catch a German POW in the last days of WWII, and gets tangled up with a spy ring, black market beef, and a sexy and complicated blonde. Sounds like a great combination for Leonard, but it’s not nearly as good as he’s capable of. On its own merits the book is decent, but I was expecting more from a writer of Leonard’s caliber.