Loren Estleman relies on his incredible imagery. Achieved through dialogue and narrative descriptions, he creates unforgettable characters. These are not people you would trust or want to know - but they tell a story. And for inveterate mystery readers, the story also operates as a course for the new millennium’s street slang where a "hit” is no longer a hit, but a “kill” and so forth.

In California, retired “business owner” Peter Macklin is honeymooning with his second and very young wife, Laurie. Peter’s former “business” was as a hired killer for the syndicate. Among his bosses had once been Carl Maggiore, a Detroit leader now relocated in California. When someone else botches a ‘hit’, Macklin is summoned by Maggiore to finish the job. Macklin resists, but capitulates when he realizes his young wife is the hostage to guarantee his performance.

Will Macklin perform as usual? How will his naďve young wife react when she discovers the truth? Can one honest San Antonio detective overcome the incredible odds among a nest of paid informants and double-dealing cops and figure out what is really going on?

Estleman weaves his plot with these questions lurking in the background. The action is fast paced and unrelenting, the characters are unsavory and mostly contemptible, and the naďve are so out of place that the contrast is almost too extreme. With this said, one could ask why keep reading?

Seldom does one meet characters so vividly depicted and so deftly drawn that it takes only a couple of pages to create a multi-dimensional one. If the reader decides not to like a character, they may do so with confidence, feeling they know all they need to know to make a reasoned judgment. In places the very graphic dialogue is humorous, and it is always in voice. For organized crime novels, parts of the plot are sadly predictable, but there are enough different twists in Something Borrowed, Something Black to make it memorable.

--Thea Davis