The Sundown Speech

September 21, 2015
A weak plot, which includes a major contrivance, mars Shamus Award–winner Estleman’s 25th Amos Walker novel (after 2014’s You Know Who Killed Me). An Ann Arbor, Mich., couple hire the Detroit PI to find Jerry Marcus, a missing filmmaker they invested money with. Marcus was working on a sci-fi project with a premise that sounds like a parody from the Simpsons (“aliens from a planet run by a totalitarian regime come to Earth to clone both front-runners for the office of the president of the United States”). Locating Marcus raises more questions than answers, and Walker soon has several murders to solve. While the hard-edged narration is as spot-on as ever, the supporting characters, from a goth college student with a heart of gold to the detective’s clients, are less nuanced than usual. The series’s many fans can only hope for a return to form next time. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary.

September 1, 2015
Truth in labeling commendation: an Author's Note identifies this 25th full-length case for Detroit shamus Amos Walker (You Know Who Killed Me, 2014, etc.) as an expansion of Attitude, a 2004 novella first serialized in the Ann Arbor News. Naturally, the case brings Walker to Ann Arbor, where two specimens of Homo Arboritis hire him to find a missing man and the $15,000 they gave him. Jerry Marcus showed such promise as a digital filmmaker that Heloise Gunnar and her husband, Dante, were more than willing to invest in his latest project, Mr. Alien Elect. Dante doesn't say much; Heloise, every inch the bleeding-heart liberal, insists that Walker leave his gun at home. The point turns out to be moot, because when Walker catches up with Jerry, he's stuffed into his ironing-board cupboard, all possible threats neutralized by a bullet in his head. Or are they? An obliging witness, baldheaded University of Michigan undergraduate Holly Zacharias, maintains that Jerry loaded a box into his Mustang and drove it away right around the time he was supposed to be getting shot. When the Mustang turns up on a country road, just as dead as the corpse, Lt. Alexander Karyl of the Ann Arbor police wastes no time in arresting Dante for Jerry's murder. But Walker can't help wondering if Jerry is really dead-or if he's gone into hiding after leaving behind somebody else's corpse somehow salted with his own DNA. A visit to Jerry's ex-partner, Alec Moselle, a guerrilla photographer of urban nudes, fans the flames of Walker's suspicions and considerably raises the stakes of his concerns. Since the expansion of his earlier novella doesn't require new plotting or character development, Estleman puts his energy into wisecracks ("If he weren't my only friend I wouldn't like him at all") and fulminations against motel rooms. Fans won't mind a bit.

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November 1, 2015

In his 24th adventure (after You Know Who Killed Me), Detroit PI Amos Walker is out of rehab and working for Dante and Helen Gunner. They need him to track down Jerry Marcus, a film producer who took their money and disappeared. If Jerry is dead (Amos finds his body), then who is driving in his Crown Vic and shooting at Amos and others?

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2015
Detroit investigator Amos Walker is hired by an Ann Arbor couple, Helen and Dante Gunner, who probably wore Earth Shoes and smoked a little weed back in the day. They want Walker to find Jerry Marcus, a local filmmaker who convinced the couple to invest $15,000 in a film about an alien invasion of Ann Arbor, and then disappeared along with his bad idea and the Gunners' money. Walker goes to Marcus' last known address and finds the con man's body stuffed in a cupboard. When Dante Gunner is arrested for the murder, Walker is hired by Helen to prove her husband innocent. There doesn't seem to be much of a case against Guner, but there is another problem: someone seems determined to kill Walker. Indefatigable when threatened, Walker doubles down on the case, at great risk. Estleman has written more than 70 novels and has won four Shamus Awards. This one is typical Walker: great dialogue, world-weary protagonist, sharp plot, and a nasty villain. A great read for fans of old-school hard-boiled mysteries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)