Book Review

By Derryll White

Estleman, Loren D. (1987). Red Highway.

This is Loren Estleman’s first published novel (1976), coming out originally as The Oklahoma Punk. Since then he has continued to write prodigiously and to create a number of series, P.I. Amos Walker being perhaps the most well-known.

‘Red Highway’ is based on the career of a Depression-era bandit named Wilbur Underhill. Written when he was 22, this novel heralded the beginning of a long and successful writing career, which is still unfolding. He is a writer who helped found the noir mystery genre, giving us a world where the difference between the lawless and the law-abiding is small. Estleman perceives us all as “killers who don’t receive the same opportunities.” Now maybe you understand why I label this noir.

Loren Estleman loves cars and writes about them boldly and in an action-packed way. Virgil Ballard, the central character, breaks into crime as a wheelman driving everything from Mac trucks to Cadillacs. He is critical of the driving skills of others Virgil’s need to be foremost in the action, a recognized killer, takes him away from the wheel and into the embrace of a Thompson sub-machine gun.

This is a sad, cold and lonely story that launched a fabulous writing career. The author declares his interest in those dark places of the soul that keep some people going past fear and reason. Virgil Ballard stands apart, his restlessness and contempt taking him to the very dark edge of human possibility.

The straightforward presentation of this story marks the lean and hardboiled language that will come later in the Detroit and Amos Walker novels. Loren D. Estleman remains one of the writers I constantly search out.

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Excerpts from the novel:

THE EXCELLENCE OF CRIME – Virgil turned to face her and smiled slowly. “Oh baby,” he said in a hushed voice, “you’re Garbo all over.”

She blushed, but that was exactly what she wanted him to think. Her shining black hair was pinned up high, so that her green earrings were visible. She wore very little make-up, but what she did use lengthened her lashes to supernatural proportions and, she thought, put just the right touch of ruddiness to her cheeks. The dress was sleeveless and extremely low cut. Her full breasts pushed against the material and pulled it taught across the front, leaving a deep cleavage much more sensuous than that allowed on the screen. She held a white clutch purse in one white-gloved hand to complete the effect.

OUTLAW – “He must have taken a pound of lead.” Jake’s voice is hushed.

“Blood till hell won’t have it,” drawled another.

The sheriff nudges the thick-set deputy at his side. “Go get the feds.” The deputy withdraws grudgingly.

“Lookit his legs.” An older deputy directs his flashlight on the foot of the bed. The pin-striped trouser legs are stained an ugly brown.

Jake hisses an astonished oath. “Christ, how’d he get this far on two busted legs?”

The sheriff places a fat cigar between his teeth and lights it. “Them kind of people ain’t human. That’s how they keep goin’.”

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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