No comments about The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion {Unabridged} {Cd}.

5 comments about Retro: An Amos Walker Novel (Amos Walker) (Amos Walker).

1. I've become a fan of Loren Estleman. Whether he's writing of the Old West or contmporary Detroit, the man is simply an extraordinary storyteller.

   Amos Walker, former homicide detective and now struggling private investigator is asked to locate the long-ago runaway son of a local madam, so he can deliver her ashes to him.

   What begins as an oddball assignment turns into something far more when the son is murdered in his hotel room near the Detroit airport. Walker becomes a prime suspect.

   From that point on, Walker walks through past and present on a quest to find the real murderer - and solve a murder from decades past.

   There's a marvelous grittiness to Estleman's writing. His characters feel real, the plot twists and turns with not a few sub-plots to keep you guessing. And the ending leaves you wanting more Estleman. He's that good.

   Jerry




2. How appropriate to have a thriller based in Detroit read by a Detroiter! Veteran voice performer Mel Foster can summon many voices yet in this reading he returns to his roots. He sounds just like a Michigander, and a tough one at that.

   Estleman's creation, Detroit detective Amos Walker, can handle almost any situation. He's seen a lot in that city pierced by Belle Isle and rimmed by the upscale Grosse Pointes. Yet, he's not at all prepared for what's in store for him following the death of Beryl Garnet.

   Beryl was really something before she went to the great beyond. She was a madam who would make the contemporary Heidis seem inept. She enjoyed a lengthy tenure in the Motor City and made a small fortune.

   However, the lady has one last wish: she wants Walker to deliver her ashes to the son she hasn't seen in a number of years. Her plea is that she wants her son to know that he's always been in her heart.

   Well, Walker does have a soft side, so he goes in search of Beryl's offspring. The young man is soon located in Canada; he's a draft dodger. He need dodge no longer because shortly after Walker finds him Beryl's son joins his mom in the heavenly kingdom.

   Of course, Walker is a prime suspect in this murder. Obviously, Walker has to find the real killer in order to clear himself. For this smart Detroit detective that doesn't sound like much of a challenge - until he discovers one more killing. This time the victim is the father of Beryl's son. Now, mother, father, and son are perhaps traipsing about the clouds. But, it's not at all heavenly for Walker here on Earth.

   - Gail Cooke




3. A simple assignment--delivering a dead madam's ashes to her adoptive son--turns out complicated and dangerous as private investigator Amos Walker investigates. The son, a Viet Nam era fugitive, is surprisingly easy to track down, especially when Walker calls on a retired FBI former client. But, ashes delivered, the son has an idea that he'd like to hire Amos to track down his father's killer--a murder that happened decades earlier, in an era when black fighters were definitely not supposed to date white entertainers.
   
   When Walker's new client is killed in an airport hotel--a hotel behind all of the screening devices of modern anti-terrorism, Amos knows that the past has re-emerged. Especially since Walker was set up as a suspect.
   
   Walker mixes with a tough county police Captain, his retired FBI buddy, a couple of gangsters in town for what looks like a setup, the gangster's beautiful girlfriend who looks to Walker for help escaping, and the aging witnesses to the long-ago shooting. Whether in style, gangsters, or murder, everything old is new again--and Walker has to move quickly to stay alive himself.
   
   Author Loren D. Estleman delivers an exciting hard-boiled mystery. Walker, with his stuborn commitment to finding the truth no matter who gets in his way, is a classic retro figure himself. Interesting dialogue, fascinating introspection, Walker's cynical but true observations on life, and high suspense and danger, along with Estleman's compelling writing, make RETRO a fast-paced and hard-to-put-down novel. If you like hard-boiled private detective thrillers, RETRO is definitely one you should check out.



4. I'm a huge Loren Estleman fan and particularly love the Amos Walker series. While I'm tempted to give this lower than 4 stars, I can't because in spite of its flaws it's still a good read. Walker is probably one of the most enjoyable hardboiled PI characters there have been and Estleman is a great writer. The major flaw with this book is that the "whodunit" isn't a mystery. It's fairly clear early on, the only mystery is the why, and that's not terribly fascinating. I recommend reading any of the other Walker mysteries first. You should be invested in the series before picking this one up.



5. Loren Estleman is one of the grand old men of mystery writing, right up alongside Lawrence Block these days. Estleman, as far as I know, rarely makes the bestseller lists (Block's finally broken through) but among detective novel fans he's one of the best-known writers of his generation, turning out novel after novel in a series that is one of the best and longest-running in the genre. Amos Walker is a wonderful creation, a tough guy who's physically not that imposing, a wisecracking detective who's not above bending a law or two, an investigator who's pretty quick on the uptake but not quite as smart as he should be.
   
   In the current entry (the 17th) Walker's hired by an elderly woman who used to run one of Detroit's whorehouses. She's dying, and she wants her only son to have her ashes when she's cremated. She duly passes, and Walker finds the son hiding in Canada to avoid prosecution for indiscretions he committed when a young man in the 60s, that involved bombs and the deaths of his two co-conspirators. When Walker delivers the ashes, the son decides to hire him to find out who killed the son's father, a flashy black boxer from the late '40s, and soon after is killed by someone under circumstances that lead everyone to believe it's somehow connected to the death of dear old dad.
   
   From there the plot goes on, with mobsters, a moll, an upright cop and a decent and polite Canadian private eye, a bitter old mother, and an aging newspaper reporter. Estleman keeps the plot skimming along wonderfully, and the solution, while logical, isn't obvious (at least it wasn't to me) regardless of what anyone else says. I enjoyed this book and I'd recommend it to most anyone: it's a very good murder mystery.

5 comments about A Smile on the Face of the Tiger (The Amos Walker Series #15).

1. The Amos Walker series is an outstanding one if you like your private detectives male, tough and laconic. If you like to read about Detroit, so much the better. In A Smile on the Face of the Tiger, Mr. Estleman has risen above the rest of the series by turning Amos Walker into a detective surrounded by a pulp fiction mystery in a pulp fiction book. The book reminded me very much of the classy Hoodwink by Bill Pronzini in the Nameless Detective series.

   I listened to the unabridged audiocassette read by John Kenneth, and especially recommend this way of enjoying the book. The telephonic versions of voices are particularly well done, and add a lot to the realism of the story.

   Louise Starr, the sexually provocative book editor from Amos's past, has started up her own title. Pulp fiction author Eugene Booth has inexplicably cancelled his contract to reprint one of his paperbacks from the 1950s, Paradise Valley. Starr hires Amos to find Booth and learn why Booth has declined. She hopes to persuade Booth to change his mind. Relying on clues from Booth's novels and leads from his last address, a trailer park near the airport, Amos soon locates Booth through his acquaintances. That shifts the scene to northern Michigan where Booth and Amos become whiskey buddies . . . until tragedy intervenes. What does it have to do with a race riot in the 1940s, a 50-plus year-old murder, and a contract killer?

   It's hard to know what to praise the most in this book: the pulp references; the remarkable descriptions; the tough guy dialogue; the action; or the subtle misdirections in the plot. Each aspect is very fine. Seldom does an author totally stump me on motive, but Mr. Estleman easily ran circles around me. I enjoyed the suspense of his unraveling of the tangled skein of clues.

   As I finished this book, I realized that it is very easy to delude oneself about what is going on. Facing unpleasant truths is a critical element in improving your situation. It's a worthwhile lesson from a very enjoyable book.




2. Everyone to his own. This is a good mystery, but I cannot see giving it 5 stars. I prefer Lawrence Block, but that's why there's chocolate and vanilla. The thing I liked the best about the book (especially since I collect quotes) is:
   There once was a lady from Niger
   Who went for a ride on a tiger.
   They returned from the ride
   With the lady inside
   And a smile on the face of the tiger.
   (...)



3. I picked up this book because of the title. I opened it and read:
   
   "Bang! Bang!Bang! Bang!
   Four shots ripped into my groin, and I was off on the biggest adventure of my life.
   But first let me tell you a little about myself.
   --Max Shulman, Sleep Till Noon (1950)"
   
   Estleman can't top that, I thought, and then I read his opening lines:
   "I thought I'd never see her again. But never is longer than forever."
   And I was off on another adventure with one of my favorite PIs, Amos Walker. Estleman's writing flows, with seldom a sour note or wrong or useless word.
   
   Amos is hired to locate a writer who returned his advance and dropped out of sight. The publisher is a handsome blonde named Louise who has started her own company, and the author, Eugene Booth, hasn't written a word in 40 years, but is back in style.
   
   Louise explains: "He's part of that whole tailfins-Rat Pack-lounge lizard-swingers revival ... The contract was to reprint Paradise Valley, his best-known novel, with an option on three others if he sold through."
   
   Finding Booth is no problem for Amos, but the trail leads back to a 1943 race riot and three lynchings, two cops caught in the middle of it, a moldering web of lies and coverups, and Glad Eddie, a nasty hit man who has written his memoirs.
   
   I don't know where Estleman finds his characters, but Eugene Booth and his friend, Fleta Skerritt, are worth the price of admission. Fleta's mind comes and goes, but in her dreams she's still the blonde in the red slip on all those lurid paperback covers of the 1950s. Eugene is an old coot with no illusions and one desire: to rewrite "Paradise Valley" the way the story really happened.
   
   I hated to close the book on Eugene Booth, but at least Amos is still around. If Estleman keeps writing them, I'll never run out of Amos Walker books.



4. You will like this book. Very good story.



5. A SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER by Loren D. Estleman is Amos Walker at his detecting best. A cold case comes to light as Walker goes looking for Eugene Booth who shouldn't be missing.
   Booth has a writer's dream come true when his forty-year old pulp fiction title has interested a New York publisher.
   But career infusion be damn, staying alive is more important. Was the fiction piece a thinly disguised version of the truth? Does Booth know more than he will admit about an old murder as a hit-man awaits trial wanting to sell his own story?
   Through numerous Amos Walker stories Loren Estleman keeps us turning the pages.
   Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.

5 comments about Sinister Heights (The Amos Walker Series #16).

1. It's an overworked phrase to be sure but Loren Estleman really is 'the legitimate heir to Raymond Chandler'. And even that's an injustice because Estleman is no mere imitator. His voice is his own - tough, poignant, as gritty as the streets he writes about, and with a killer ear for dialogue.

   The Amos Walker series has matured over sixteen novels from it's breezier, almost pulpish beginnings to one of the finest detective series in print. The sheer skill of his writing and his deftness of phrasing makes you gasp in wonder. I find myself constantly re-reading sentences just to savor them.

   Other reviewers have gone into the plot of Sinister Heights in some detail so I won't bother repeating it. The real magic here is the writing. This may not be the best Walker novel (Never Street and Sugartown are possibly better) but then I can't think of a bad one either.

   While other good PI writers have seen their glory days Estleman goes from strength to stregth with each new book. For those that still wish there were more Philip Marlowe novels, who've given up on Spenser and his clones or who just like the best in PI fiction available, don't go past Estleman and Walker.

   And, as other reviewers have noted, his western novels bout Marshall Page Murdock are well worth picking up too. They're really PI novels of the old west. Or his Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Hell, anything the man writes.

   Have I made my point? Don't miss Estleman. He's the real deal.




2. Being a huge noir detective fiction fan I found it a little difficult to muddle through this installment in the Amos Walker series. The plot starts out in typical fashion and then goes on to become Walker out for revenge, sort of like Walking Tall or something along those lines. The ending went back to a typical hard-boiled style of ending with the detective confronting the person behind the mayhem which was nice. Unfortunately this one just didnt do it for me. Estleman is definitly an accomplished author and all the other reviewers of this novel are right on target with most of their reviews but the revenge angle just didnt work for me.



3. I'm a huge fan of this series and of Estleman's books. My problem with this one is that it's completely absurd. I really have no idea what Estelman was thinking on this one. The ending is ridiculous. I'm sorry, you'll have to read it to find out exactly how silly it is. That being said, I could never tell a fan of the hardboiled PI genre to avoid any Walker mystery. Amos Walker always makes the read worthwhile, no matter how silly the events (this book) or predictable the killer ("Retro"). I do, however, recommend reading any of the other Walker mysteries before reading this one or "Retro."



4. Some of the Amos Walker novels are excellent. Sinister Heights is not one of them. The book has a too-short plot, so Estleman pads the novel with gobs of politico-babble, a car chase, and one of the most far-fetched endings I have ever read. Don't waste your time.



5. Loren D. Estleman's journeyman solo P.I., Amos Walker, is back working the mean streets of an ever-changing Detroit, as he is sent from the haunts of the very very rich to locate a lost heiress. His search will bring him into contact with various lowlifes from the social depths to those that walk in the ranks of elites, the movers and shakers of old Detroit. And criminality will be found everywhere, high and low.
   
   In an ever more computerized world, Amos knows he's a throwback, but finds there is still a niche for a tough guy, even a low tech one. This will turn out to be a nasty trek and a personally tragic one for Amos. The climax may be a little over-the-top but getting there is all the fun.
   
   Estleman's style is just as arch and funny as always. One reads him for the pleasure of the writing and the plentiful wisecracks, similes, and asides. Good stuff.
   
   Out of curiosity I read exactly one James Patterson novel, his last Alex Cross, and I was amazed at how badly written it was. And he sells by the ton. Go figure. Oh well, I'll never read another, so bless you Loren D. Estleman, and keep on keeping on.

1 comments about General Murders (The Amos Walker Series #8).

1. "General Murders" is a collection of ten Amos Walker short stories that are done every bit as well as any of the Detroit P.I.'s best novels. Author Loren Estleman proves himself to every bit as effective working in the short form as he is with his novels. As the title implies, the stories mostly deal with death and murder, but they all come with a twist, most of them unforseemn and satisfying. Walker is the most Phillip Marlowe-like P.I. walking the means streets today. Any P.I. fan owes it to themselves to make his acquaintence. At at brief 230 pages, this book is a quick delight.

5 comments about Gas City.

1. Unneedful of haste, Loren Estleman, in this standalone novel, limns a tale of an `ordinary' Midwestern blue-collar city with its usual equal parts of good guys and bad, corruption and greed, which with one precipitating event begins to boil to a point where it may just combust. Pivotal characters include Police Chief Francis Russell, married for 55 years to his beloved Martha ("Marty"), and devastated by her death as the book opens; Anthony Zeno ("Tony Z"], boss of The Circle, an area of ten square blocks ["the only thing the area required to be considered an independent city was its telephone exchange"] to which all the sex-for-sale, drugs, gambling, etc. of the city are confined; Nicholas Bianco ("Mr. White"), Tony's boss; Moe Shiel, the unofficial and unsworn Chief of Police of the Circle, as well as its unelected Mayor; and Hugh Dungannon, Russell's boyhood friend now a Bishop in the church; and assorted others. The town was built around an oil company which is and always has been its most important component and employer.
   
   Russell's life is now immeasurably saddened. He hasn't seen his daughter in 12 years; his son was killed while serving in the Armed Forces in southeast Asia. He has served as Chief for five terms, during all of which time he has had an "understanding" the local Mafia boss With his wife's death, the latter is unsure whether Russell will "continue to hold up his end." Indeed, he ponders whether redemption is possible, and considers actually doing the job he was hired to do all those years ago.
   
   In addition to those described above, the book is full of colorful characters: The hotel detective who says of himself: "Being a busted copy was as bad as being a defrocked priest. It took practice to keep your lies straight;" Zeno's wife, Deanne, whose husband describes her as "healthy as a horse. And just as expensive to keep;" a local judge who "had developed the bad habit, after seventy, of slipping in and out of gear when he was running for reelection. In his dotage he thought his seat on the bench had something to do with ballots." In the midst of a mayoral campaign, the town is hit with a serial killer, variously referred to as the Black Bag killer [for his choice of container for body parts] or Beaver Cleaver [for his choice of weapon].
   
   I found I had to pay close attention when reading for fear of missing subtlely wonderful passages, which abound. One of my favorites was this description of Russell's reactions upon his wife's passing: "And then the rage and heat were gone, and there was a hole through him and he had to turn so the wind wouldn't whistle through it. He'd been preparing for this moment for weeks - years, he corrected, from the time the results of the first tests had come back and he'd stopped arguing with them - and he'd hoped the dread of the waiting would give way to a sense of release. He'd felt it for a moment, with the last exhalation, when she took her leave of her body, a lacy apparition in a cheap religious print. But this was a new level of emptiness. What he'd thought was the bottom collapsed beneath his weight, the thinnest of crusts, and he went plummeting yet again. It was like falling in a dream. They said if you woke up before you hit, you were okay, but if you didn't, well, that was when people died in their sleep. It seemed better than this eternal falling."
   
   "Gas City" is a very pleasurable and satisfying read, and is recommended.



2. With "Gas City", Loren Estleman is at the peak of his form, once again crossing the ambiguous line from purely entertainment fiction into the heady realm of literature. (Whatever that is -- you know it when you see it)."Gas City" joins his Doctorowesque Chicago gangster novels and more recent westerns as high art, and also is thematically reminiscent of the big-city corruption novels of W.R. Burnett. Estleman deserves far more critical acclaim in the popular press than he is rightfully accorded. Don't miss this one.



3. This book was no more than a string of cliches. I was bored to tears the second half of the book.



4. Things are changing in Gas City. The refinery that drives the local economy is failing. The "agreement" between the police chief and the local mob boss that keeps crime confined to "The Circle" is breaking down after the chief's wife dies. The newspapers are trying to decide what mayoral candidate to back and which candidate to flog on the basis of what is likely to increase circulation during these troubled times. And on top of all that there is a serial killer on the loose called "Beaver Cleaver."
   
   The most interesting part of "Gas City" centers around a disgraced former police officer named Palmer who is barely employed as a detective at the seedy Railroad Arms hotel. Palmer begins to wonder what he has gotten himself into when he gets curious about a suspicious, unregistered guest in Room 116. He is reminded once again of what he liked about being a policeman. He might want to be respectable again.
   
   He decides to kick the booze and the cigarettes, but he doesn't get much support. Even his girlfriend (who is a prostitute) says she liked Palmer better as a drunk.
   
   There is a lot to like in "Gas City." There are some interesting themes, some unique descriptions, some great characters, and some humorous moments. There is a lot going on.
   
   It's not all good, though. I could not get a handle on the city at the center of the story. It sounds like a cross between Manhattan and Tulsa. It has a race track, a mob boss, ethnic neighborhoods, and a convention center, but only two TV stations?
   
   My main problem with Gas City was that it had no single driving plot to it. When I was finished I felt that "Gas City" was a collection of subplots and supporting characters for a daytime soap opera.



5. What a waste of time this book was. Nothing was resolved in the end and the most recurring theme in the story was death. I did not see that villain developing.
   
   The only 2 characters worth reading about were the hotel security(?) guy and his(?)girl and they came to unnecessary bad endings.
   
   Didn't like this book at all