Jim Beaver's assessment of "Thin Air" (the novel) is on
target. The use of an ad agency to search for a missing
person, while probably the concept that prompted the book,
has through the years taken a far back position to the
novel's truly significant contribution to the genre. That
would be the mystery of the wife's disappearance and its
solution. As has been pointed out, on this list and
elsewhere, since Howard Browne sold the book to Universal for
a pittance (I think he said it was $500), that plot device
has been used on nearly every TV crime series
(Rockford, Simon & Simon, etc.) and was, I think, the
uncredited source for the Kurt Russell film
"Breakdown."
The posts taking a less than sanguine view of Estleman's Amos
Walker novels (hitting the earlier ones for their overuse of
simile, the latter as being contrived) puzzle me. Any book
written at the beginning of a career (especially decades ago)
will probably suffer from some excesses.
(Chandler slapped Macdonald's wrists for saying an old car
was "acned with rust" in "The Moving Target.") These are
fairly insignificant, annoying though they may be when read
today. The novels are nicely-plotted, the Detroit locations
are sharply detailed and Amos Walker is a well-conceived
character. Should Estleman go back and take out the similes
for future editions? Not really, huh. As for the new books,
where's the contrivance? The character has aged twenty years
and he behaves as if the years have been hard ones. Robert
Parker has noted on occasion that Spenser is his age (60s?),
but you can't tell this from the books. He's as ageless as
Archie Goodwin. That seems to me a much better example of
contrivance.
Dick Lochte
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