Nicotine Kiss: An Amos Walker Novel [Hardcover]

Thank God for Loren Estleman. I recently plowed my way through a book that a former classmate, now a creative writing instructor, had written which had all the fictive elements currently in vogue - irony, surface cleverness, political correctness, name checks of celebrities high and low - but lacked the characteristics the academic literati have deemed passe, like plot, character, credibility and structure. This misbegotten volume, along with the run of substandard mysteries I've encountered lately, made me depressed as to what passes for a novel these days. Depressed, that is, until I opened Nicotine Kiss.

From Estleman's first sentence the reader is palpably there, not confronting a snarky, self-conscious pile of words, but immersed in a yeasty, full blooded world that's very much like ours, except the dialogue's better. And our tour guide to that world is old friend Amos Walker, a crusty, observant and mordantly funny private eye of the old school, and proud of it.

His Maltese Falcon on this adventure is one Jeff Starzek, a cigarette smuggler and old acquaintance who, after saving Amos's life (or at least his leg) disappears, ensuing that Amos will pull out all the stops to find him. The closer he gets to Starzek the more trouble he gets into, both from the nominally good guys and the nominally bad guys. In one of the many eminently quotable passages Amos describes his place in the scheme of things:

Chaos and order, black and white, the rock and the hard place. I'd built my business square between them. That makes me the only police force some people can turn to when they have a complaint. It's a definite niche. The pay stinks, but the hours are long, and the benefits include county food, a cot, and free burial by the state.

Estleman is able to effortlessly integrate timely elements like terrorism, the Office of Homeland Security and religious extremism into a spellbinding plot that unfolds in logical yet unexpected ways, Amos's wounded leg adding an interesting complication to the usual tough guy act. He's on the road a lot, leaving Detroit for the Lake Huron coastline and Michigan's own legendary Thumb, encountering great characters, all finely drawn from the most major to the most minor. Estleman knows how to set a scene memorably and economically and then atomize it with a few shotgun blasts. Let's just say you'll never think about fat ladies on snowmobiles in quite the same way.

Like Jeff Starzek the peripatetic smuggler, Nicotine Kiss is stripped down, relentless, nimble and just keeps moving. It's the total package, one of the strongest entries in what is, let's face it, the best continuing private eye series in the universe.

So if you need to renew your faith in mysteries, or just novels in general, do what I did - get a Nicotine Kiss.

NICOTINE KISS is one of those mysteries where the lead character, Amos Walker in this case, is much more interesting than the plot. I have read only one other Amos Walker mystery, but so far he reminds me a great deal of Travis McGee. There's the wise guy repartee, the self-deprecating humor, and the penchant for getting beat up or shot. Walker is shot at least twice in NICOTINE KISS, and he's gimpy for most of it.

The second thing that I found impressive was the honor among thieves theme. Jeff Starzek, a cigarette smuggler, saves Walker's life, after Walker is shot the first time. Because of this Walker refuses to believe a Homeland Security agent when he accuses Swarzek of counterfeiting. Swarzek's adoptive sister hires Walker to find him when Swarzek goes missing. In the process we learn that Michigan has more coastline than California.

There's also lots of atmosphere in NICOTINE KISS. Estleman uses cold weather to good effect. Of course, Walker is never properly dressed for sub-zero weather. Starzek and Walker also drive souped-up cars, Walker a Cutless with a 455 engine, Starzek a Hurst Olds. At one point Starzek says it's not the money in reference to his smuggling, it's the driving. He's a modern moon-shine runner. Starzek also plays the piano, everything from Rachmaninoff to jazz, when he's not running from Homeland Security and other coppers.

Here's the kind of insouciance you get from Walker. As he's tracking Swarzek, he stops at a sort of truck stop/ bar called the Air Horn. The denizens are watching televison. "A row of exposed butt cracks seated at the bar were watching DEUL on video and rooting for the truck." You get this kind of irreverence on every other page.

There's a blurb on the back cover from the great John D. MacDonald: "A gem. Estleman goes on the very short list of the peer group I can read for pleasure." This was for SUGARTOWN, a previous Walker mystery. I'll be ordering that one soon.

I read all of the Amos Walkers books by Loren Estleman and I have never been disappointed. Thou Amos is aging, ( and he should be) the character is still fresh. Estleman is an author I eagerly wait for the new book. Also read his wife D. Morgan

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