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SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLACK by Loren D. Estelman St. Martin's Press, April 2002 240 pages $24.95 ISBN: 031287863X Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I've given up trying to analyze why a peacenik like me is fascinated by hit man Peter Macklin. I've found this series spell-binding, and I must admit, that bothers me a little. What I recently figured out is that following characters like Macklin, or those of Richard Stark or Lawrence Block has are a sort of intriguing procedural experience. Like police procedurals, some of the interest comes from watching how they do what they do. There's some why involved too, but no writer can completely explain why someone like Macklin, a rather amoral, matter-of-fact killer lives with himself.

In Something Borrowed, Something Black, Macklin's retired. He no longer kills for a living; in fact, he's newly married to a young woman from the Midwest who thinks her quiet husband of a week has retired from the camera business. The couple is honeymooning in California when Macklin is forced to take one more job. Assigned to babysit the new Mrs. Macklin, Laurie, is "Abilene", a drawling tall Stetson-wearing dude who wears on Laurie very quickly. It becomes apparently quickly that Laurie is actually a hostage, used to ensure that Macklin does his job for Charlie Maggiore (now Mr. Majors) and doesn't go wandering off.

Laurie struck me as naÔve and I have a low tolerance, I'm afraid, for jealous. Not that I expected her to guess her husband's job, but when he takes off, allegedly to Sacramento to finalize some business deal, she immediately assumes, sobbing, that he's with another woman. If she was that unsure, how could she possibly marry the guy? She is gutsy, I agree, dealing with a situation that is so far outside of her experience, and she does better than most folks would probably do. But her naivete and simple thinking at times bugged me. But then, I've known about Macklin and have dealt with the shock of who he is.

Macklin's past adventures were intriguing descriptions of his handling weird situations, being and doing what most of us never imagine. Here, half of the story is turned over to Abilene and that was a big part of my problem. I didn't want to read about Abilene, or spend a second with him. To me, he was the side of Macklin that is so dismaying and uninteresting; violent, business-like, completely uninterested in anything whatever. Anyone could write an Abilene; I expect more from Estleman, a very talented writer. The book offered a bit more graphic violence than I was ready for, perhaps because I knew that Macklin was a careful worker and because well, he wasretired.

Just about anything Estleman writes is worth reading (ok, I haven't read everything. Yet). In lesser hands, I think Macklin would have been Abilene, and I wouldn't have lasted twenty pages. But it was a long wait for this particular book and I, selfishly, would have been happier with a more straightforward book featuring Peter Macklin, married man in retirement who just happens to have killed people for a living.