Sinister Heights (The Amos Walker Series #16)

However, it's the pairing of unreconstructed gumshoe with modern malevolence that makes Loren Estleman's stories interesting. In Sinister Heights, Walker is hired by the fetching young widow of powerful auto maker Leland Stutch. She wants him to locate her hubby's illegitimate offspring so she can share with them her inheritance--and thereby avoid future lawsuits. But the would-be heirs have troubles beyond the monetary. Stutch's granddaughter is on the run from an abusive spouse, and Walker's efforts to help her only lead to her son's kidnapping, the violent death of one of the PI's oldest women friends, a cinematic assault (by 18-wheeler trucks) on a suburban car factory, and a surprise Stutch progeny who hopes to capture all of the late magnate's millions.

Estleman's cops and politicians are caricatures, and he doesn't give his protagonist much emotional complexity (though Walker does bare a bit of beating heart in this book's fine closing sequence). But he makes up for these faults with his polished plot, a talent for fleshing out characters with a minimum of words, and a robust nostalgia for Detroit's heyday that almost makes you think fondly of belching smokestacks. --J. Kingston Pierce

Product Description
Rayellen Stutch, the 30-something widow of an automobile tycoon, calls on Amos Walker to undertake a most unusual investigation. Since she has more than enough money, she wishes to share the wealth with her husbands various mistresses and illegitimate children. As Walker locates the various individuals, he learns that a long life of power makes one many enemies.

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.