Sat 25 Nov 2023
Stories I’m Reading: LOREN D. ESTLEMAN “The Used.â€
Posted by Steve under Stories I'm Reading[10] Comments
LOREN D. ESTLEMAN “The Used.†First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1982. Reprinted in The Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction, edited by Edward Gorman (1987) . Collected in Desperate Detroit: And Stories of Other Dire Places (Gallery Books, softcover, April 2016).
Ed Gorman’s Black Lizard anthology cited above is an unabashed homage to Black Mask magazine, and although this story was written as a standalone without a series character in sight, I think it would have fit right in. The protagonist is an accountant who is the star witness against a gangster he used to work for, and who has been promised protection and a new identity by the Feds.
Not an uncommon situation, especially in mystery stories like this one. But, what if something goes wrong and the defendant gets off? The Feds are no longer interested in him, and he’s on his own, up sh*t creek without the proverbial paddle, that’s where he is.
The prose is as smooth as silk, told seemingly effortlessly and building in tension as it goes. This may be the best story I’ve ever read by Estleman, terse, taut and stretched to the breaking point. That’s a statement that’s saying something, since Estleman is also the author of 31 top of the line adventures of Detroit-based PI Amos Walker, starting with Motor City Blues in 1980, and still counting.
Rating [on my H/B = Hardboiled Scale]: 8.5
November 25th, 2023 at 9:06 pm
From the mean streets of Detroit to the foggy steps of Baker Street and the dangerous plains of the Wild West Estleman has few equals and no masters as a storyteller.
November 26th, 2023 at 12:38 am
I have to confess that I haven’t read any of his Holmes stories, nor his Westerns, but the fact is I don’t read anybody’s Holmes stories any more, except for Doyle’s, nor Westerns, either. But just last night I started an Amos Walker book (The Glass Highway), and it pulled me right in, from Page One on.
November 26th, 2023 at 9:25 am
His westerns, especially the ones with Page Murdock, would fit into your hard boiled category just set in the west in the 1800’s.
Haven’t read the Valentino stories, but the Macklin stories were always good, and his stand alone westerns excellent.
For a prolific author, very, very consistent.
November 26th, 2023 at 2:35 pm
Estleman writes stories and books faster than I can read them. I’ll never catch up!
November 26th, 2023 at 4:46 pm
Ive only read sugartown and all i remember is throwing the book across the room after a highly implausible implausibility linked Amos’s two distinct cases in a trim little bow.
November 26th, 2023 at 4:59 pm
Ha. I’ve not read that one. I hate it when that happens too. (And it probably means you won’t read another one by him, no matter how hard someone might try to persuade you.)
But if you get the chance, do read “The Used.” I think you might like it. It’s the lead story in Ed Gorman’s Black Lizard anthology, and for good reason.
November 26th, 2023 at 5:59 pm
Steve,
Well I just might. I’ve got that anthology pretty handy at the moment. Do have every brilliant eye somewhere deep in the tbr because of dick lochte: http://newimprovedgorman.blogspot.com/2010/08/dick-lochtes-top-20-private-eye-novels.html?m=1
November 26th, 2023 at 11:13 pm
As a top 20 list of PI novels, that’s a good one. I’d kind of wish he’d ranked them in order instead of alphabetically, but I sure don’t see any duds among them.
November 29th, 2023 at 7:31 am
He doesn’t get enough credit standing in Leonard’s shadow, I guess. A truly fine writer.
November 29th, 2023 at 2:32 pm
Right. Elmore Leonard was one of a very few mystery writers who managed to break out of the genre “ghetto.” Only a tiny handful ever have.