A Smile on the Face of the Tiger (The Amos Walker Series #15) - Softcover

Estleman, Loren D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446678171 ISBN 13: 9780446678179

Publisher: Mysterious Press, 2002

Synopsis

In Estleman's latest novel, Amos Walker is back on the streets of Detroit as he investigates the mysterious death of an ageing pulp fiction writer.

About this title

Review:

Amos Walker has a sharp eye and a sharper sense of the absurd. Pair these with a dry wit and a fondness for Scotch and you've got Detroit's answer to Philip Marlowe. Just trade the fedora for a Tigers' baseball cap. Loren Estleman's acerbically philosophical PI has been going strong for 13 novels and shows no sign of slowing down. In a funky, meta-textual noir riff, A Smile on the Face of the Tiger immerses Walker in the world of '40s and '50s American pulp fiction, where men clench lantern jaws and women (sorry, dames) wear silk stockings and cause trouble.

When a New York publisher asks Walker to track down author Eugene Booth, who's refusing to allow his classic Paradise Valley to be reissued, Walker's first instinct is to say no. But Booth's novel, about a Detroit race riot in 1943, fascinates Walker, especially after he finds Booth's dictation tapes. Booth has "a low fuzzy bass that might once have been rich and pleasant before too much whiskey, too many cigarettes, and three or more trips too many around a rundown block had hammered it into that dull monotone you hear at last call and over the loudspeaker in the eleventh inning of a pitchers' duel." Walker discovers that it's not just whiskey and cigarettes that have affected the author. His wife was murdered 50 years ago to prevent Booth from spilling the truth about the events he fictionalized.

Walker traces Booth to a rundown motel on the shores of Lake Huron. His presence there is no surprise, given his fondness for solitude and fish. But why is mobster Glad Eddie Cypress, who should be gearing up for a big book tour, holed up at the same motel? When Walker finds Booth swinging from the rafters, he decides to find out. When the number of people who wanted Booth dead starts multiplying, and a 50-year-old race riot and murder move back into the spotlight, Walker is hard-pressed to keep himself from becoming history.

Estleman's sardonic prose (the Detroit River is "the only spot on the North American continent where you could look across at a foreign country without seeing either wilderness or tattoo parlors") makes A Smile on the Face of the Tiger move energetically along. This noir veteran, never content to rest on his laurels, has produced another gritty winner. --Kelly Flynn

About the Author:

Critically acclaimed and versatile author Loren D. Estleman has been called "the absolute best in the hard-boiled business" (Philadelphia Inquirer). Since the appearance of his first novel in 1976, Estleman has published forty-two books, including the Detroit series and many historical westerns. He is best known for the Amos Walker mysteries that put him in "the top eschelon of American private-eye specialists" (New York Times). He is also the author of The Wister Trace, a critical study of twenty-nine classic Western novels. His pastiches pitting Sherlock Holmes against Dracula and Jekyll and Hyde have been continuously in print since their first appearances nearly twenty years ago. Estleman is an authority on both criminal history and the American West. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. He is the recipient of seven national writing awards, including three Shamuses from the Private Eye Writers of America and three Golden Spurs from the Western Writers of America. In 1987, the Michigan Foundation of the Arts presented him with its award for literature. In 1997, the Michigan Library Association named him the recipient of the Michigan Author's Award. Estleman has been a judge for many literary honors, including the prestigious Hopwood Award given by the University of Michigan. He has written book reviews for many newspapers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. In 1988, he covered the filming of Lonesome Dove for TV Guide. Estleman's previous Amos Walker novel, Never Street, received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, had been featured in People as a "Page Turner of the Week", and chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of their "Books of the Year" for 1997. A sought-after speaker and a veteran journalist of police-beat news, Estleman graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Journalism. He lives in Michigan.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0446678171
• ISBN 13: 9780446678179
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 295