Retro: An Amos Walker Novel (Amos Walker Novels) | 
| Author: Loren D. Estleman
Publisher: Forge Books
Category: Book
List Price: $5.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 381185
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 1
ISBN: 0765343738
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780765343734
ASIN: 0765343738
Publication Date: November 1, 2005
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Condition: 2005 Forge/Tom Doherty softcover. Mint condition, not a remainder.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
"Have you noticed how often the word 'retro' occurs in today's advertising?" a white-shoe lawyer muses in Loren D. Estleman's Retro. "It's used to sell everything from ballpoint pens to wings of hospitals. These days, backward is the new forward." Which clues you in right away to the plot orientation of this short-fused 17th novel (after Poison Blonde) featuring Detroit private eye Amos Walker, a character who's always been nostalgic for the era of mobsters and molls and dialogue gritty enough to chip teeth. Estleman here reaches all the way back to his first Walker book, 1980's Motor City Blue, in order to resurrect Beryl Garnet, a once-prominent whorehouse operator with a laugh "like Tinkerbell on crank," now in residence at an assisted-living facility. She hires the detective to find her not-too-bright adopted son, Delwayne, and make sure that he's given her ashes after she dies. Trouble is, Delwayne has been on the lam ever since his association with a 1968 plot to blow up the Detroit Federal Building in protest against the Vietnam War. Months later, and with the assistance of a vintage FBI agent and a politely proficient Canadian PI, Walker pins down his quarry in Toronto and hands over the late madam's "cremains." But Delwayne isn't satisfied; he wants our hero's help in solving the 1949 shooting death of his unacknowledged father, Curtis Smallwood, a black heavyweight boxing champ whose affair with a white Hollywood s! tarlet threatened her career. When, soon after this, Delwayne is murdered in a supposedly secure Detroit airport hotel--with the same .38 revolver that killed his father more than five decades before--Walker goes digging for answers. Along the way, he unearths a New York gangster's grandson, a mother with a record-setting case of hate, an overeducated mistress with leaving on her mind, and an electronic bug in his office that takes all the fun out of talking to himself. Nobody these days outperforms the three-time Shamus-winning Estleman when it comes to penning wisecracking repartee--a reminder of the American detective story's deep roots in pulp fiction. ("Are you afraid of the police?" a would-be client asks, to which Walker responds: "Terrified. They're armed and they drink a lot of coffee.") Yet, while the Amos Walker series upholds many genre traditions, it has also grown beyond them, both as a result of the author's finely honed prose and Walker's willingness to recognize himself as an anachronism. A melancholy appreciation of the Motor City's often unsavory history just adds to the attractions of Estleman's work. --J. Kingston Pierce
Product Description
As a detective on the mean streets of Detroit, Amos Walker has to make friends in low places. It’s part of the job. So when the incredibly successful madam Beryl Garnet needs somebody to fulfill her last dying wish, she turns to Walker. She hasn’t seen her son in a long, long time, and wants him to have her ashes when she’s gone just to let him know she hasn’t forgotten about him. Walker obliges her. Walker finds Garnet’s son, Delwayne, a Vietnam War protestor who has been living in Canada since the 1960s, and hands over his mother’s ashes. When Walker returns to Detroit, he is surprised to learn that Delwayne is dead and he, Walker, is the prime suspect. To clear his name, Walker must find the murderer. In the process he discovers another murder, of a prizefighter from the 1940s…Curtis Smallwood, Delwayne’s father. Walker knows he has his work cut out for him when he discovers that the two murders, fifty-three years apart, were committed with the very same gun. And even more puzzling, at the time of Delwayne’s murder, the gun was in the limbo of airport security, inaccessible, to say the least.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
estleman is the heir to chandler August 27, 2008
Once again, i find myself saying that each new Amos Walker novel is the best one yet. I simply cannot understand why estleman is ignored by the "mainstream" mystery audience nor why he isn't regularly on the NY Times best seller list. He is my very favorite in this genre and that's saying a great deal, as i read every agatha christie by age 14, love patricia wentworth, dorothy simpson, ross macdonald, john D macdonald, michael connelly, eliz george....know basically all the authors carolyn hart mentions in her books. i just read a review of another book where the auther was compared to chandler and i keep wondering why said author isn't compared to loren estleman/amos walker. Loren Estleman is THE true heir to raymond chandler. My mother loves reading amos' one liners to my father. I can't wait til the next amos walker comes out. There simply aren't enough superlatives. The plot in this stretches way back into the past, similar to many ross macdonald books. which is just fine.
Satisfying and wothwhile January 1, 2007
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.
 Worst of the Walker series August 15, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Very strong hard-boiled mystery August 3, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
AN AUTHENTIC, ARTICULATE READING June 20, 2004
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
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
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