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Title: Black Powder, White Smoke by Loren D. Estleman ISBN: 0-7653-4110-7 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 19 October, 2003 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A writer that deserves a wider audience
Comment: I don't know why Loren D. Estleman isn't better known. I guess that is the curse of the writer that writes "genre" fiction. Estelman is one of the best writers working today. His characterization is first rate, and his dialogue is second to none. Also, Estleman is an expert on the American West and it really shows in this novel. His sentences are always chisled and perfect. Briefly, this book tells the tale of two gunman that are pursued by the law, and their fates and lives intertwine.
A truely wonderful look at the American West. There is a great deal of action and a kind of hard, flinty humor that this author specializes in.
Even if you do not like "Westerns" give this book a try. If you do like Westerns, you won't need me to confince you. You will already know what a gifted writer Estleman is.
Rating: 4
Summary: Gunmen On The Run
Comment: Honey Boutrille owns the House of Rest for Weary Boatmen, a whorehouse in New Orleans, and plays part-time piano when his regular man is out. His life is changed when Winston Claude Saint-Maarten assaults one of the working girls, cuts up her face, and takes her hostage. Honey waits the man out and kills Saint-Maarten stone-cold dead, leaving himself nothing to do but run for his life because black men can't kill white men without their own lives becoming forfeit even in wild New Orleans in 1881. Emerson Emerson, nicknamed Twice because he was named that way, is an owlhoot who has been bad since the day he was born. At the same time Honey was gunning down Saint-Maarten, Twice has a train robbery go south on him near Sacramento, California, leaving the safecracker dead and him no choice but to go on the lam. In San Francisco, Twice runs afoul of the local Chinese Tong, which promptly puts a price on his head and forced him on the run one more time. Both of these men, one black and one white, live life on the run for the next few months, neither of them having any luck between them as they are pursued by lawmen and journalism in an incredibly-shrinking Old West. At the same time, Ernest Valerian Torbert, a journalist in Chicago, Illinois, is offered the job of tracking down Honey Boutrille for his life story. Argus Fleet, the publisher and owner of Jupiter Press, is convinced that such a story would be a best-seller, and even has the title picked out: THE BLACKSNAKE OF NEW ORLEANS, OR THE DEVIL OF THE DELTA, A TRUE TALE. Longing for adventure, Torbert takes the assignment. In the meantime'as Honey's bad luck holds true and he leaves a trail of dead bodies behind him of men who were bad or tried to collect on the bounty on his head, and Twice follows through on a string of robberies and killings that emblazon his name on newspapers throughout the West'vaudeville promoter Casper Box seizes on an idea. Always in search of a new venue, Box hears about Twice Emerson and starts putting together plans to feature the villain as a performer, not hesitating at all when fate puts Honey in his hands as well. But Box's double-bill of Old West entertainment featuring two notorious criminals and man-killers isn't going to be easy because the difference between Honey and Twice are lethal.
Loren Estleman is an award-winning Western writer. He's also won awards for his Amos Walker private eye novels set in Detroit, Michigan. In addition to these two fields, Estleman is also recognized as a worthy writer of historical fiction, as is evidenced by BLACK POWDER, WHITE SMOKE. Other works in the Western field include the Page Murdock series, including CITY OF WIDOWS, THE HIGH ROCKS, and WHITE DESERT. His Western novel, THE MASTER EXECUTIONER, won the 2002 Wrangler Award for Outstanding Western Novel.
BLACK POWDER, WHITE SMOKE is a fast-paced adventure chockfull of historical lore and Old West myth. The characters, while larger than life, ring true, as do the events that each man finds himself in. The dialogue is tight and skilled, moving the plot along and introducing different facets of Honey and Twice in heartbeats. Torbert and Box are also given great detail, and the different voices can actually be heard in the narrative flow. The gunplay is excellent, pulling the reader into the thick of the action, while the inner dialogue of each character comes across fresh and deep. With the different locales made possible by the construction of the novel, as well as the varied subjects covered, Estleman present quite a look at the old West and the men who became legend. Perhaps Honey Boutrille and Twice Emerson never actually existed, but men who lived the kinds of lives the author reveals did. Although many readers may wish Estleman had stayed with his two primary characters more, the scenes with Box and Torbert are fascinating in their own right, offering concise histories of place and time and the two professions the men are locked into.
Some readers may have to be patient as Estleman weaves his multi-layered tale. Honey and Twice share the limelight with Box and Torbert. Many readers may wish that the author had stuck more to the two primary characters in the beginning, but as Torbert and Box grow as characters in their own right, their points of view deepen the story and make the inevitable resolution more compassionate. And, in a sense, either Torbert or Box could have been Honey or Twice had their own paths not proven a little less rocky.
In BLACK POWDER, WHITE SMOKE, Loren Estleman has combined a presentation of violent Old West adventure and historical accuracy. The story of Honey and Twice offers a great read that will compel its audience to keep turning pages late into the night.
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Title: Murdock's Law by Loren D. Estleman ISBN: 0812535391 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 15 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: Poison Blonde: An Amos Walker Novel by Loren D. Estleman ISBN: 0765304473 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 19 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Master Executioner by Loren D. Estleman ISBN: 0812584376 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 16 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Something Borrowed, Something Black: A Peter Macklin Novel by Loren D. Estleman ISBN: 081254546X Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Port Hazard by Loren D. Estleman ISBN: 0765301903 Publisher: Forge Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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