Sat 21 Nov 2009
TMF Review: LOREN D. ESTLEMAN – Angel Eyes.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[2] Comments
LOREN D. ESTLEMAN – Angel Eyes. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1981. Paperback reprints: Pinnacle, 1984; Fawcett Crest, 1987; Ibooks, 2000.
As is the case with all good private eyes, Amos Walker is a man with an unswerving code of honor. When his client, a girl singer with unforgettable eyes, disappears, as she had predicted she would, shaking him from the case is as easy as sneaking a steak from a hungry dog.
The scene is Detroit, and union politics combine with and merge inevitably into the background of a city in slow decay. To perk things up and to keep the case moving, Estleman is a current master of the well-tuned metaphor. He is also better at mood than he is at plot, and there is enough plot in the second half of the story to choke a full-grown horse.
The longer the trail becomes, the more it insists on turning incestuously back upon itself. Not surprisingly, there are also plenty of guns to go around.
Editorial Comment: This is the second book in Loren Estleman’s “Amos Walker” series. How many of the PI series being written when he began are still being written today? That’s “enough said” to say it all.
The Amos Walker series:
Motor City Blue (1980)
Angel Eyes (1981)
The Midnight Man (1982)
The Glass Highway (1983)
Sugartown (1984)
Every Brilliant Eye (1985)
Lady Yesterday (1987)
Downriver (1988)
General Murders: Ten Amos Walker Mysteries (1988)
Silent Thunder (1989)
Sweet Women Lie (1990)
Never Street (1996)
The Witchfinder (1998)
The Hours of the Virgin (1999)
A Smile on the Face of the Tiger (2000)
Sinister Heights (2002)
Poison Blonde (2003)
Retro (2004)
Nicotine Kiss (2006)
American Detective (2007)
The Left-Handed Dollar (2010)
November 21st, 2009 at 1:51 am
This was the first Walker I read and a good one. I’ve wandered away from them a bit, but always mean to get back. Estleman, among his many other good books, as done some fine historical mysteries set in the recent past of Detroit too. One of those writers who sometimes seem so good we just take him for granted. The Walker series, Pete Macklin, Page Murdock, the biographical westerns, the historical mysteries, the Holmes pastiche … and among them some of my favorite books of all time.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:28 am
I have to admit that looking at the list of Amos Walker books only, there are titles in it that are brand new to me, and I’m a PI fanatic of long standing. I try not to miss any when they come out, and it looks as though I have.
There are some authors who write books faster than I can read them, and Loren D. Estleman is one of them. You’re quite right, David, in pointing out in how many genres and sub-genres he’s been writing them in.
Jumping off in another direction, if you can read the fine print on the covers of his first two Amos Walker books, you’ll see that they’re both billed as “novels of suspense.” Later on Walker gets a noticeable credit on the covers.
I have a feeling that in 1980 and 1981, PI novels were in such low repute that publishers were running away from them, at least in hardcover.
But I don’t have any other data to back this up. It’s just an observation.
Coming up, two more Estleman reviews.
— Steve