No comments about The Branch and the Scaffold.

No comments about Billy Gashade {Unabridged} {Audio} {Cd}.

No comments about The Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association.

No comments about Bloody Season, 7 CDs [Unabridged].

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

1. 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.
   (...)



2. 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.



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



4. 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. An Amos Walker Novel. OK, this might have been it, the one I knew he had in him. No wasted words, no extraneous action, no bogus reaction. Pure noir that rings true on the level of Chandler and Hammett.
   
   Perhaps its not coincidental that the subject is an old pulp fiction writer who is asked to resurrect his career and ends up resurrecting old wounds.

5 comments about Thunder City.

1. Loren D. Estelman's Thunder City portrays a city of new beginnings and organized crime. Detroit is becoming a hotbed of automobile manufacturers and con men. Harlan Crownover emerges from the pack willing to jump into the automobile business and finance the mechanical genius Henry Ford. Harlan's father Abner, the wealthiest man in Detroit and many other powerful men fell that the automobile will ruin everything that they have worked so hard for. In his quest for financial backing, Harlan comes across Jim Dolan, the city's street railway commissioner who immediately turns him down. Next the relentless Crownover turns to the Sicilian Prince, Sal Borneo, a mafia boss who loves the idea of having young Harlan backed into a corner. Now the pressure rests on Ford to make an efficient, affordable vehicle. Could he overcome the pressure of Detroit's political scene? Or will he be crushed in his third attempt at the automobile industry?
   Loren Estleman's historical novel is a great look into the history of Detroit and the birth of the auto industry. It also delves into the first stages of organized crime, and Prohibition. While a good read, it is often difficult to follow and contains many unnecessary details that slow the progression of the story. At times the novel can be very suspenseful and riveting; but at other times, it can be very dull and uneventful. Estleman begins most chapters by setting the scenes with many lengthy, drawn out observations that eradicate the story's pace. For this reason I would recommend Thunder City to history lovers but not to those in search of an exciting quick read.



2. Loren Estleman is to Detroit in many ways as Carl Sandburg is to Chicago. Great American cities on the move growing and quaking with their expansion. THUNDER CITY brings an early entrepreneur, a political boss and a member of the mob together as teammates in the early days of the automotive industry. Friends they are not and they are soon mortal enemies with grievances to settle.
   Estleman's clear sharp prose is as stark as an emerging city and it will keep you enthralled until the last page.
   Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.



3. Straight historical fiction from Estleman, recounting the founding of Ford Motor Company, with a little action stirred in. Untypically for him, more description and character development, less dialogue and action, and it works well.
   
   Fiction and humor go hand in hand with historical tidbits such as the monochromatic Model T being available only in black because the black paint dryed faster and enabled Ford to roll them off the assembly line quicker.
   
   Just when you think he can't do better, he does. Estleman is my favorite contemporary fiction author.



4. This is the seventh and final entry in this author's Detroit series. In each of the books Estleman takes a pivotal point in the city's history and combines historical facts and personalities with great storytelling. The series' main character is the city itself with a supporting cast of politics, organized crime and industry - and this being the story of Detroit that means the auto industry. Thunder City chronicles the car industry's birth at the turn of the last century with Henry Ford as the central figure - although he's not the central character of this book - his successes, failures, friends and enemies as he revolutionizes not only the city of Detroit but the country with his vision of a car for every household.
   
   What drives this book is the supporting fictional cast - a rotund, corrupt city official fighting change as he sees the power equation changing and not in his favor; a Detroit family's internal struggle as their business in horse drawn carriages is threatened by Ford's horseless one; and an up and coming Italian crime boss playing both sides of the struggle - Each vying to be King of the Detroit Hill. Their scheming, planning and double-crossing even when we know who wins is still fascinating.
   
   This is an excellent book and an excellent series.



5. I'm a big fan of Estleman, especially his Detroit series, and enjoyed "Thunder City" very much. I withhold the Fifth Star of Reader Ecstasy over a small error that nevertheless bugged me. Page 90 of the hardcover edition, describing a holiday scene on Belle Isle: "The smells of sun and water there where the river prepared to enter Lake St. Clair were intoxicating..." Argh. Any native of the area knows the Detroit River does not enter Lake St. Clair; it drains it. In fact, the Detroit River isn't technically a river at all but a strait, which is how the city got its name. I don't expect quibbling over that and this isn't a Barry Lopez novel, but it is a little like learning Jacques Cousteau mixed up the direction of the Gulf Stream.
   
   That said, this may be my favorite of the series, if only because it involves a bit of local history I, a non-native, was unaware of, the battle over the Selden patents. It prompted me to read more about this case, and I agree with Estleman's afterword, that Henry Ford never received credit for standing up to those who would have quashed a transformative technology out of self-interest.
   
   Mr. Estelman, your editor didn't save you, but your book saved itself.

5 comments about Angel Eyes (The Amos Walker Series #2).

1. "Angel Eyes" is the second novel in the excellent Amos Walker private detective series. Though it doesn't hit with quite as much impact as the series debut, "Motor City Blues," it still packs a hefty wallop. Once again, Walker finds himself at odds with the police and mixed up with rough company as he tries to find a stripper who hired him to find her BEFORE she disappeared. Once again, the bad streets of Detroit are the setting for the story, though Estleman takes Walker on an effective side trip to a sleepy bedroom community. Walker is just what a great P.I. ought to be; a lonely, cynical, alcoholic who nevertheless cares a bit too much.

   Walker is one of the best hardboiled P.I.'s working the genre. Fans of Travis McGee, Matthew Scudder, Harry Stoner and Phillip Marlowe should get themselves acquainted.




2. The second entry into the Amos Walker private detective series is not quite as strong as the debut, "Motor City Blue." Still, there is plenty of good stuff for fans of the genre. Walker is a wise cracking tough guy and Estleman writes with the immediacy and poetry of masters such as Raymond Chandler and John D. MacDonald. Walker is a much a part of his native Detroit as the Tigers. This entry in the series takes Walker on a sidetrip to a sleepy bedroom community that adds more fun to the storyline. Overall, Walker is one of the best hardboiled P.I.s around.

   A word about the i-books publications that are reprinting Estleman's Walker novels. These are fine quality paperbacks, each of which features bonus material, in this case a short essay by Estleman about the novel and how he came up with his ideas. It is like the cherry on a fine dessert.




3. A number of the later books in Estleman's Amos Walker series are really great, but the second volume in the series is a disappointment. The characters and plot are hard to keep straight, the hardboiled narration is so exaggerated and incessant that it comes off almost as parodic (clearly not the author's intent), and I found myself having to force my way through the second half of the book even though it's only 240 pages long. On top of everything else, the iBooks edition is full of embarrassing typos -- did no one proofread it?

   Buy THE WITCHFINDER if you want a good Walker novel. This one is a dud.




4. This is the second volume in the Amos Walker series and begins exceptionall well,when Walker is engaged by an exotic dancer in a seedy Detroit club to investigate a missing person-herself.She is in fear of her life and hires Walker,paying him with an expensive diamond ring.He gets involved in an altercation when someone tries to take it away from him and who turns up dead in the now missing dancers apartment.Walker is soon up to the neck in bodies,union politics and missing judges,coorupt investigators and policemen who hate his guts.There is abreak from city sordidness with a trip to bucolic Huron but even here death and the curse of gentrification and urbanization looms large.

   The problem is the plot revelations that are handled clumsily and in an almost parodic way and that undercut fine writing and sharp characterization Estlemnan got way better at this later in his career and I would urge those eager to discover Walker to enter at a later point in the series

   Its not his best by a long chalk.




5. I listened to the unabridged audio version of this novel, and I really enjoyed it: with two caveats: the narrator read the novel WAY too fast, so that sometimes I felt myself wanting to ask him to SLOW DOWN. The second problem I had with this novel, was the recording. Either I received a flawed version, or there was something wrong with the print run. When it said to reverse to the other side, and adjust the balance control, sometimes, the side which I reversed to would be incorrect. (This appeared to be only on one tape, and the others functioned perfectly, so I was STILL able to enjoy the book, it just was a mite confusing to figure out which side I needed to be on).

   Onto the plot: This is a typical Amos Walker novel. Amos is a tough-talking, one-liner spewing Private Investigator living in Detroit. He is hired by a blue-eyed stripper to investigate her own disappearance (?). Yes that's right. What follows is a series of events involving a pair of evil policemen, a Union Boss, and a corrupt ex-judge. In typical Amos form, Amos bulldogs his way through the mystery with some unexpected results.

   A great addition to your Amos Walker collection... Boy I wish I could have as much imagination as Loren D. The one-liners alone make this story!

5 comments about Frames (A Valentino Mystery).

1. I read a fair amount of crime fiction, but had never read anything by prolific multiple award-winner Estleman until now. The film preservation milieu of this first in a projected series caught my attention, so I decided to give it a whirl. The story revolves around a UCLA film archivist named Valentino, who, in the course of buying a crumbling historic theater in LA, makes the discovery of a career. Many film buffs know the story of Erich von Stroheim's film Greed (based on Frank Norris' novel McTeague), which the studio chopped from ten hours down to a confused two hour release, tossing the remaining footage in the process. That missing footage is a Holy Grail for film archivists, and naturally Valentino discovers it in the old theater he buys.
   
   However, he also finds a skeleton, and once the police are alerted, it's a race to solve a 50-year-old murder before the police decide to confiscate the priceless (and highly unstable) canisters of Greed as potential evidence. Fortunately, he's got help in the form of his 60-something UCLA mentor, who's a walking encyclopedia of film history and a flouter of convention and law to boot. There's also Fanta, a smart and sexy co-ed who's interning with the film preservation office. Finally, there's the sexy (4 of the 5 primary female characters are described as highly attractive) LAPD crime scene investigator Valentino meets and falls for.
   
   The story is best described as of a fun romp, somewhat reminiscent in tone of a Scooby Doo episode. Valentino and friends have to figure things out while keeping their investigation secret from the cops, which gives the proceedings a bit of a farcical air. There are several outsized funny characters, such as the crotchety old department secretary, and the hilariously affected Russian restoration specialist, among others. There are tons of references to Golden Age Hollywood which may or may not send readers to the internet to look up, and plenty of interesting information about the art and science of film preservation. Some of the gags and wordplay are kind of corny, and it's best read with a willing suspension of disbelief. For example, even though the theater is totally falling apart, how does a 30-something film preservationist have enough money to buy it? But on the whole, it's a fun lightweight read that should appeal to mystery readers with a taste for classic Hollywood fare.
   
   Note: Valentino has apparently previously appeared in ten short stories published in Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine. Hopefully these will be collected in book form at some point.



2. Calling himself the "Film Detective" Valentino earns a living as film archivist at UCLA. He considers buying the Oracle, a dilapidated theatre that back in the 1920s was a showcase. However, as he inspects the crumbling edifice, he finds several reels of Erich von Stroheim's classic epic, Greed; though long lost to the ravages of time, stupidity, and avarice.
   
   However, his discovery takes a setback when Valentino also uncovers a skeleton. He would prefer to ignore the old bones and run off with the film, but his conscience will not allow Valentino to do so. He calls the cops informing them of the human remains, but remains silent re the reels out of fear the evidence takers will damage the valuable work, which would put his conscience in suicide mode.
   
   This is an entertaining Hollywood mystery as the lead character hides evidence from the police rationalizing why he did it. The cold case investigation is fun to follow as the Film Detective tracks cinematic clues one frame at a time; while also rationalizing again why he is making inquiries. Apparently Valentino has appeared in short stories, but in his novel debut he seems complete and able to hold together an enjoyable somewhat movie fun fluffy whodunit.
   
   Harriet Klausner



3. I've been a long-time fan of Loren Estleman. His Amos Walker series has been the standard bearer of the hard-boiled PI school for over 20 years. His Peter Macklin books "stretch the boundaries" of the cliched murder-for-hire genre. Hell, I rarely read westerns, but I find Estlemans' works right up there with Zane Grey.
   However, a series on the adventures of a UC film professor is not exactly the bullets and broads-type of story that he does so well. Eminently readable, of course, but not really a thrilling action novel.



4. This little novel is adequate but in no way great. A film/Hollywood buff is likely to find it acceptable. The mystery it sets forth is not particularly interesting and is primarily an excuse for the author to deploy what hes learned about old movies and film preservation. This could have been more entertaining had the book's extensive repartee been more clever and the characters delivering it more three-dimensional.



5. "You give your mouth to evil,
   And your tongue frames deceit." -- Psalm 50:19
   
   I found Frames in a most unusual way. I'm a big fan of Loren D. Estleman and picked up a copy of the second book in the Valentino series, Alone. Utterly charmed by that story, I pulled my reading temporarily to a halt mid-way through and headed out to find Frames. The back story for Alone seemed just too good to be true. I had to find out more. I'm sure glad that I did.
   
   If you are looking for an action thriller with a hard-boiled detective in a noir style, this book won't appeal to you. But if you have a fondness for Hollywood, the history of the movies, the silent movie era, and a romantic mystery filled with outrageously good humor, Frames will charm you for sure.
   
   On the surface, Frames can feel like fluff . . . but beneath the almost self-satirical humor lies a delightful plot, a gag environment, and a Keystone Kops-like approach to detection that fits closer to Stephanie Plum than to Sherlock Holmes.
   
   Be warned that the murder mystery is simply there to move the plot along. If you like difficult whodunits, this book also isn't for you.
   
   To me, the humorous mystery is the most difficult kind of book to write. Mr. Estleman carries it off like the pro that he is. He's having so much fun with this story that you cannot help but smile at the plot and in his obvious pleasure in writing the book.
   
   Bravo!

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 Sinister Heights (The Amos Walker Series #16).

1. 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.



2. 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."



3. 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.



4. 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.



5. An Amos Walker novel. Too much dialogue and somewhat unbelievable action, plus the jarring death of a likable recurring character and love interest for Walker, hampers this effort. Not bad, but not his best.