SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLACK

Peter Macklin is pushing 45; he’s been retired from business for several years; and he’s just married Laurie, the dishy 21-year-old who’s honeymooning with him in Los Angeles. So he has every reason to think his days as a contract killer are over. But when Charles Major, né Carlo Maggiore, the crime boss Macklin pumped two bullets into back in Detroit, spots him hours after one of his lesser killers botches a contract on San Antonio bookie Johns Davis, he’s back in the game, with Maggiore’s cowboy thug Roy (Abilene) Skeets babysitting Laurie to make sure Macklin doesn’t miss the target or change his mind. That’s the setup, and unless you’re worried that Estleman brought his long-dormant hit man (Any Man’s Death, 1986, etc.) out of retirement in order to kill him or his bride, that’s pretty much all there is. The complications, from Laurie’s attempts to slip out from under Abilene’s watchful eye to Macklin’s sarabande with the San Antonio locals to a climactic pair of showdowns back in LA, are all dispatched with an experienced hand; but there’s nothing like the magisterial density of the author’s Amos Walker novels (Sinister Heights, 2002, etc.), and oddly little attention to the questions of who would want to kill inoffensive Johns Davis, and why.

As to the equally interesting question of how Laurie Macklin’s going to deal with the long-term implications of her bridegroom’s career choice, it looks as if that’s going to have to wait for the sequel.