Customer Reviews

A Smile on the Face of the Tiger (Amos Walker Mystery)

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Most mystery series have become either worn out or routine by the time they get around to their 15th outing. Not so Loren Estlemen's Amos Walker P.I. series. If anything, Estlemen and his hero are getting better. "A Smile of the Face of the Tiger" is the fourth Walker book since Estlemen took a seven year hiatus from his favorite shamus, and it is easily the best of the "comeback" novels. Walker remains one of the few who truly does carry on the torch of Phillip Marlowe with his lonliness, cynicism and uncorruptible nature.

This time out, he tracks a old pulp fiction writer who has disappeared after turning down an advance to reprint one of his old novels. I've seen this story line several times before, but Estlemen gets clever with it. Along the way, he weaves in his usual menacing mobster (a Sammy "the Bull" Gravano clone, no less) and corrupt police officer angles, also in a fresh and unique way. It also helps that Estlemen puts two of the series's better supporting characters, police Lieutenant Mary Ann Thaler and beguiling publisher's representative Louise Starr, to good use this time out. As always, the real hero of the story is the once great city of Detroit, still struggling to regain some of its lost luster, this time with casino gambling.

Overall, Walker is among the best private detectives in the literary world today, and this is one of his best novels to date.

I picked up this book because of the title. I opened it and read:

"Bang! Bang!Bang! Bang!
Four shots ripped into my groin, and I was off on the biggest adventure of my life.
But first let me tell you a little about myself.
--Max Shulman, Sleep Till Noon (1950)"

Estleman can't top that, I thought, and then I read his opening lines:
"I thought I'd never see her again. But never is longer than forever."
And I was off on another adventure with one of my favorite PIs, Amos Walker. Estleman's writing flows, with seldom a sour note or wrong or useless word.

Amos is hired to locate a writer who returned his advance and dropped out of sight. The publisher is a handsome blonde named Louise who has started her own company, and the author, Eugene Booth, hasn't written a word in 40 years, but is back in style.

Louise explains: "He's part of that whole tailfins-Rat Pack-lounge lizard-swingers revival ... The contract was to reprint Paradise Valley, his best-known novel, with an option on three others if he sold through."

Finding Booth is no problem for Amos, but the trail leads back to a 1943 race riot and three lynchings, two cops caught in the middle of it, a moldering web of lies and coverups, and Glad Eddie, a nasty hit man who has written his memoirs.

I don't know where Estleman finds his characters, but Eugene Booth and his friend, Fleta Skerritt, are worth the price of admission. Fleta's mind comes and goes, but in her dreams she's still the blonde in the red slip on all those lurid paperback covers of the 1950s. Eugene is an old coot with no illusions and one desire: to rewrite "Paradise Valley" the way the story really happened.

I hated to close the book on Eugene Booth, but at least Amos is still around. If Estleman keeps writing them, I'll never run out of Amos Walker books.

New York publisher Louise Starr hires Detroit's private investigator Amos Walker to locate writer Eugene Booth, author of the half a century old classic "Paradise Valley." Louise wants the rights to reprint the novel. However, Booth has simply vanished.

While Amos goes about his missing person inquiries, he learns that former Mafia hitman turned author Glad Eddie also seeks Booth. When he finds Booth, Amos learns that the recluse plans to write a non-fictionalized account of the city's 1943 riots. The next day Booth is dead, an apparent suicide. Amos begins investigating the death of Booth and the murder of the writer's wife over fifty years ago, not yet understanding the danger he faces.

SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER, the fourteenth Amos Walker mystery novel, retains the noir feel of its predecessors. The book pays homage to the pulp fiction of the thirties and forties and to Detroit. The story line is captivating, and the who-done-it is fun but clearly this tale belongs to Amos, a fresh intriguing character who constantly take beatings. Loren D. Estleman continually shows his ability to write delightful contemporary noir.

Harriet Klausner

The Amos Walker series is an outstanding one if you like your private detectives male, tough and laconic. If you like to read about Detroit, so much the better. In A Smile on the Face of the Tiger, Mr. Estleman has risen above the rest of the series by turning Amos Walker into a detective surrounded by a pulp fiction mystery in a pulp fiction book. The book reminded me very much of the classy Hoodwink by Bill Pronzini in the Nameless Detective series.

I listened to the unabridged audiocassette read by John Kenneth, and especially recommend this way of enjoying the book. The telephonic versions of voices are particularly well done, and add a lot to the realism of the story.

Louise Starr, the sexually provocative book editor from Amos's past, has started up her own title. Pulp fiction author Eugene Booth has inexplicably cancelled his contract to reprint one of his paperbacks from the 1950s, Paradise Valley. Starr hires Amos to find Booth and learn why Booth has declined. She hopes to persuade Booth to change his mind. Relying on clues from Booth's novels and leads from his last address, a trailer park near the airport, Amos soon locates Booth through his acquaintances. That shifts the scene to northern Michigan where Booth and Amos become whiskey buddies . . . until tragedy intervenes. What does it have to do with a race riot in the 1940s, a 50-plus year-old murder, and a contract killer?

It's hard to know what to praise the most in this book: the pulp references; the remarkable descriptions; the tough guy dialogue; the action; or the subtle misdirections in the plot. Each aspect is very fine. Seldom does an author totally stump me on motive, but Mr. Estleman easily ran circles around me. I enjoyed the suspense of his unraveling of the tangled skein of clues.

As I finished this book, I realized that it is very easy to delude oneself about what is going on. Facing unpleasant truths is a critical element in improving your situation. It's a worthwhile lesson from a very enjoyable book.

Amos Walker is a hard-boiled private eye of the old school. in A Smile On The Face Of The Tiger, Walker is tracking down a man named Eugene Booth as part of a missing-person case. But something is going on he wasn't expecting that involves a New York mob hit man and a half-century-old murder. Just as with his previous Amos Walker mysteries, Loren Estleman writes a vividly crafted, gritty, pulp fiction style novel set in an underworld of passion, lies, murder, and unexpected revelations. A "must" for all classic, two-fisted private eye mystery fans

Private Detective Amos Walker soon learns there is more to his latest missing person case than a drunk who wandered away from home. Police lies and incompetence, Mob killers, and the damaged flotsam of an author's life form the rich history of missing author Eugene Booth.

Walker is the perfect tough detective--reminiscent of the 'hard-boiled dectectives' of the 1930s, Walker has to deal with his own morals in a world where Mafia killers sign million-dollar book deals and where a murder doesn't get investigated because the woman had questionable morals.

Loren D. Estleman has created a powerful mystery with all of the twists and turns you could possibly expect, and with an additional spark. A SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER makes you think, may give you an occasional smile, and will get your heart rate up.

I highly recommend this excellent novel.

As a mystery writer with my first novel in initial release, I fondly recall the hours I spent reading Loren Estleman's Amos Walker series as I learned to write PI fiction. Amos Walker is a masterful creation, and A SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER is a masterful work. In this novel, Walker is hired by a New York publisher to hunt down a paperback mystery writer who will not allow his fifty-year-old classic to be reprinted. Along the way, Walker discovers the author's reasons and undercovers sordid truths about race relations in America. Estleman has dealt with Detroit's history thoroughly in past works, and he has also touched upon the interesting literary history of paperback pulp fiction. Mr. Estleman is at his most effective here in A SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER. It is a great book, and I recommend it highly.

This is the 15th adventure of Amos Walker. Walker, a Detroit private eye, is a throwback and heir apparent to Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, without being a cheap cardboard imitation. This series is "hard-boiled" in the best sense of the word - engaging, witty, poignant, cynical, timely and always entertaining. In a genre in which such series and their protagonists run out steam after a handful of books, Estleman and Amos show no sign of mediocrity or stumbling into the literary sunset.

In this book Walker is hired by a New York publisher, with whom he has a "past", to find a pulp-fiction author, whose literary history is was much more typical of the genre - see above. Said author's fifteen minutes of fame was brief and meteoric; now he is among the missing and Walker's client wants to gain his permission to reprint his books. Sounds simple and straightforward, but this an Amos Walker case and things quickly become much more complicated.

Locating the reclusive author proves a not so onerous task for Amos, but that opens up the proverbial can of worms and Amos finds himself embroiled in a 50+ year old murder case, police corruption, Detroit history and the tentacles of the mafia. The secondary cast of characters is fascinating; the twists and turns in the plot will hold your attention; and Walker's dialogue and observations will keep you chuckling. A Smile On The Face Of The Tiger is another great mystery in a great series.

A SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER by Loren D. Estleman is Amos Walker at his detecting best. A cold case comes to light as Walker goes looking for Eugene Booth who shouldn't be missing.
Booth has a writer's dream come true when his forty-year old pulp fiction title has interested a New York publisher.
But career infusion be damn, staying alive is more important. Was the fiction piece a thinly disguised version of the truth? Does Booth know more than he will admit about an old murder as a hit-man awaits trial wanting to sell his own story?
Through numerous Amos Walker stories Loren Estleman keeps us turning the pages.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

You will like this book. Very good story.