Carlos Webster witnesses a drugstore robbery and killing at age 15, which hardens him. He later shoots and kills a cattle rustler, impressing a federal marshal who hires him. By age 21, Deputy U.S. Marshal Carl Webster has a reputation for being the quickest draw in the West. Reporter Tony Antonelli wants to write about Webster and other lawmen chasing famous criminals like Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during the Depression era. Webster finds himself in dangerous situations as he pursues outlaws across America.

1. The
Hot
Kid
By: Elmore Leonard

2. Characters of the Story
Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson,
Emmett long, Carlos Webster, Jack
Belmont, Tony Antonelli

4.  The ''Hot Kid'' of the title is Carlos Webster,
the son of a wealthy pecan farmer and
Spanish-American War hero. When he is 15,
Carlos witnesses a drugstore robbery and
cold-blooded killing, and the experience both
fascinates and matures him. He grows a ''hard
bark,'' as his father says, and a few months
later, when he catches someone rustling his
father's cattle, he shoots him without a
second's thought.

5.  The federal marshal investigating the case is so
impressed by Carlos's coolness -- by his
''strutting,'' he says later -- that he offers him a
job. By the time he's 21, Deputy U. S. Marshal
Carl Webster is the hottest young lawman in
the West, his reputation considerably enhanced
by his knocking off the robber Emmett
Long, the very one who committed the
drugstore murder.

6.  At the time, Webster may or may not have
stared Long down, saying, ''If I have to pull my
weapon I'll shoot to kill,'' but the line, genuine
or not, quickly becomes his trademark: the only
time Carl Webster draws his gun, or so it is
said, ''it's to shoot somebody dead.''

8. Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty
Boy Floyd across America’s
Depression-ravage heart Jack
Belmont, out to make a name
for himself. His dad’s Oris
Belmont of NMD Gas and
Oil, worth a good twenty
million, into refineries, car
lots, has a tank land farm.

10. Tony Antonelli loved the literary
style of Harding Davis, the
greatest journalist in the world.
He wrote, and he observe the
story of Carlos Webster, he
interview Crystal Davidson the
editor about the story of robbery.
Within a few months he was
living in Tulsa and writing for
True Detective Mystery magazine.

12. Carlos Webster was fifteen in the fall of 1921 the first time
he came Face-to-face with a nationally known criminal. A
few week later, he killed his first man – a cattle thief who
was rustling his dad’s stock. Now Carlos, called Carl, is the
hot kid of U.S Marshals Service, one of the elite man hunter
currently chasing the likes of Dillinger, Baby Face
Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd across America’s most
famous lawman. Jack Belmont, the bent son of an oil
millionaire, wants to public enemy number one. Tony
Antonelli of true Detective magazine wants to write about
this world of cops and robber, molls and speakeasies from
perilously close up. Then there are the hot dames- loudly
and Elodie- hooking their schemes and dreams onto
dangerous men. And before the gun smoke
clears, everybody just might end up getting exactly what he
or she wished for.