Customer Reviews

Silent Thunder (The Amos Walker Series #10)

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Ok, so the plot does take a turn towards the highly improbably in the end. But it is not entirely unbelievable. As for the assertion that someone could not have stored a 30 ft. missile in their basement, read the book! The character was extremely wealthy. I'm pretty sure he would have had a larger than average basement. As for the inaccuracies regarding military ranks and careers, no biggie. Your average CSI or NCIS episode is full of made up technologies and exaggerated capabilities and no one thinks they are less entertaining as a result.

The bottom line is that this is a supremely entertaining read and I liked it as much or more than any of the other Walker novels.

Amos Walker is solidly in the tradition of the American private eye as established by such masters as Chandler,Hammett and MacDonald.He is white,middle aged,and partial to the twin vices of nicotine and alcohol.As a one man operation in an insecure profession he is no stranger to an existence just a step or two away from the poverty line.He is quick with a one liner and has an outlook on life that tempers a bruised romanticism with a relaxed tolerance and understanding.A good friend and bar room companion methinks.
His beat is Detroit,a city Estleman makes very much a character in its own right-decaying,violence ridden,corrupt and a place -as the writer is quick to point out-that has its history and culture very much tied to the gun.
In this book Walker is hired to prove the innocence of a wealthy widow,Constance Thayer,who is pleading self defence on a charge of shooting her late husband ,an abusive drunk.The late unlamented's father is seeking to prove cold blooded murder as he wishes to gain custody of her child and train him to take over the family business.
Walker becomes entangled in the arms trade as he seeks to find evidence that will exonerate Constance,and it is this which forms the real meat and potatoes of the book.Clearing Constance is relatively easy but the arms dealers are another and more vicious proposition entirely especially when very large sums of money are at stake,as is the case here.This aspect of the book does tend to strike a false note or two for me ,with a bad guy,a vietnam veteran, who seems to have strayed in from a Bond movie,what with his dreams of blackmailing an African government over mineral rights.It just sits oddly with the rest of the book which is a solid well crafted traditional private eye yarn.
Still,all in all ,its neatly and economically told,with compassion and heart not to mention a mordauntly cynical view of law enforcement.Just a pity about the plot going a tad awry towards the end
Still worth reading if you like the private eye genre.

Some readers are bothered more than others by gross factual errors and implausibilities in a crime novel. I am one of the sensitive ones. While Eistelman's writing is fluent and adept and he knows how to move a story along, I can't ignore his unfamiliarity with basic military information in a book with a military background.

For example: One character,an Army veteran, is stated to have been a "lieutenant j.g.," a Navy rank, unknown in the Army. Another was a Marine and a West Point graduate -- not an impossible career path, but Annapolis would have been far more plausible. But what really stands out is that we have a character taking delivery of a stolen Polaris missile and storing it in his basement. It must have been some basement as the Polaris was almost 30 feet high. (The book's ultimate McGuffin turns out to be even less believable, but describing it would be a spoiler).

The author's protagonist is the best. The story is, as usual, tense, funny, and worth a read. Author made one error but I could not contact him for a correction. Does not take away from a great story.

Loren Estleman's Amos Walker private eye series is one of the best of the genre. Novels like "Sugartown" and "The Glass Highway" are among the best P.I. novels ever. With "Silent Thunder," Walker stays true to form. He's as quick with his guns and hit wit as ever. He continues to run into dangeorus thugs and corrupt policemen. And he remains as uncorruptable as ever. In this installment, Walker takes on some crazy gun dealers and a powerful businessman on behalf of a client who's about to go on trial for murdering her husband. Its the type of case that Walker specializes in, helping the little person in a battle against the larger forces trying to extinguish them. Unfortunately in this book, Estleman allows plausibility to get taken for a ride. He stretches both the corrupt cop and the crazy gun nut angles way too far. Not to mention the fact that this is the first Walker novel in which the hero begins to seem a bit stale. Estleman has not allowed Walker to grow as a character the way Lawrence Block has with Matthew Scudder or Andrew Vachss has with his Burke charcter. And by this, the ninth novel in the series, Walker is beginning to get a little tired. Perhaps that is why Estleman took a seven year break from writing Walker adventures after the novel that follows this one. Overall, Walker novels are never bad but they are usually better than this.