Synopsis/blurb ...
Loren D. Estleman has been writing and publishing books and novels since 1976. His fiction includes westerns, mysteries, thrillers, and historical thrillers. Along the way, he's written a number of crime stories. Stories about the darker side of life, broken hearts, swindles, double-dealing and just plain evil men and women who define the title of this collection. No matter how many times you put it down...Evil Grows.
In this collection of twelve tales, you'll find killers, cheats, liars, detectives, and more twists and turns than a country road. Contents include:
Introduction
Evil Grows
Flash
How's My Driving?
Saturday Night at the Mikado Massage
The Pioneer Strain
The Used
The Tree on Executioner Hill
Lock, Stock, and Casket
Bad Blood
State of Grace
Diminished Capacity
Cabana
Another Audible enjoyed (with a decent narration by Paul Heitsch) collection of short stories from an author who I've been meaning to read for a long time, just never got around to. I've a few Estleman novels on the pile - the Peter Macklin hitman series, Gas City and the odd Amos Walker PI novel. I may actually have read an early Amos Walker novel, though if I did it kind of feels like it was in a previous life, as zero memory remains of the book title or contents; only the lingering suspicion that it wasn't amazing, as I never picked up another by him soon after.
Two months on, I can't remember much about the stories, only that I wasn't bored. Ergo - I enjoyed the collection and the narration didn't annoy me. If it had, I would have remembered that at least.
The Mikado Massage story stands out when flicking through the table of contents, so I guess that one was the most memorable. A close second would be The Tree of Executioner Hill, which had a twist at the end, which I saw coming. I didn't enjoy the story any the less for that. The others - good, bad, indifferent? Probably good, maybe indifferent and perhaps the odd one which I didn't vibe.
3 from 5
Read - (listened to) September, 2022
Published - 2012
Page count - 124 (4 hrs 39 mins)
Source - Audible purchase
Format - Audible
I just finished his Amos Walker "Monkey in the Middle" yesterday. It was a good read. And I remember really liking "Every Brilliant Eye" back in 1987... which is, as you point out, another life.
ReplyDeleteFrank, thanks for stopping by and commenting. I definitely ought to move him up the pie. You don't have as many titles published and in print as he does without being worthy of a further look-see!
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