Loren Estleman, Nicotine Kiss

Nicotine Kiss

Loren Estleman

In Grayling, Michigan on the first day of the new hunting season, private detective Amos Walker is, undercover tracking a deadbeat dad when he is shot in the leg. An acquaintance, small time cigarette smuggler Jeff Starzek rushes Amos to a nearby hospital before he bleeds to death.

As Amos heals with a limp, Homeland Security Agent Herbert Clemson believes that Jeff's two bit operation has grown into a vast terrorist supported counterfeiting ring and plans to hold him indefinitely under the guise of the Patriot Act. When Jeff vanishes, his sister Rose turns to Walker to find her brother whom she says still only works his small time cigarette trade. Amos believes he owes his life to Jeff so he makes inquiries that lead to a remote Lake Huron evangelical Church of the Inland Sea with the Feds telling him to stay out; a red flag that entices Walker to dig deeper as he believes the term Fed means liar.

In his eighteenth appearance, Walker continues to be one of the best private investigator tales of the past decade. His latest case involves the post 9/11 world of the Feds who before the Patriot Act willingly stomped on rights and now he believes can do so legally. The storyline is terrific as Walker and readers wonder if the church, the jihadist counterfeiters or the Feds have abducted and buried Starzek so that no one else, incuding the NSA wiretapping, can find him. Once again Loren Estleman has written a straight forward fantastic mystery.

Forge, Apr 2006, $23.95

ISBN 0765312239

Harriet Klausner