Customer Reviews

Downriver (The Amos Walker Series #9)

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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This is case number 8 for Detroit private eye Amos Walker and by now Mr Estleman was well into his stride with the series and he produced a solid and thoroughly professional outing for his sleuth.
Walker meets his client ,De Vries ,on the day de Vries is released from prison having served twenty years for arson ,the police having maintained it was a crime designed to act as a diversion for a major robbery in 1967 ,against the backdrop of the riots sweeping Detroit .De Vries is adamant he was set up by a white liberal associate of his at the time of the act and wants ,not revenge ,but his share of the money from the robbery.

The solution sees Walker enmeshed in the world of high finance in the automotive industry and before the case is closed murder and violence rear their ugly heads.Walker'sinvestigations also take him to a world where peolpe still mourn for the loved ones they lost in the violence and disorder of the late 60's and the compassion for the victims of those times is neatly and tellingly done.
I liked the way Estleman in the depiction of many key figures has avoided stereotyping and neatly undercuts expectations -de Vries is a humourous man who wants ,not blood but financial recompense;an old style cop,instrumental in de Vries' arrest is not the racist we may well have expected but afamily man with scruples who is not above going out on a limb to right old wrongs.
The major caricature ,oddly enough is the main character, Walker himself and he is the traditional gumshoe to a Tee-white,middle aged .an ex-cop with a working if scarecely warm relationship with the police.
Milieu as ever with the series is good and Detroit comes alive as a character in its own right-gritty ,decaying and in thtrall to the culture of the gun

Enjoyable.

Not having read this yet, I can only assume that it wasn't Mr. Estleman himself who gave the definition of "downriver" as being "anyplace not in Detroit itself."

A lifelong resident of a downriver community, I feel the need to clarify. The term "Downriver" refers to the cities that are, for the most part, literally "down the Detroit River, south from Detroit." In other words, it includes the cities south of Detroit that actually are bounded by the Detroit River on the east (River Rouge, Ecorse, Wyandotte, Riverview, Trenton, Gibraltar) and a few cities extending to the west (including Allen Park, Lincoln Park, Southgate, Taylor, Woodhaven, Brownstown).

If Mr. Estleman is responsible for the incorrect definition, it will be my FIRST disappointment with him since I started the Amos Walker series. In any case, I look forward to finally getting a copy of this from my library and delving in.

First thing to take into consideration is that I am a sci-fi and fantasy reader. The reason I picked up this book was it being based in Detroit (where I grew up). But I was pleasantly surprised by the story that unfolded in front of me. It was a good story, and seeing that mysteries are new to me, it enlighted me to the genre.

What I liked most was the character of Amos Walker. I have always gotten the impression that most "P.I." novels done in first person would portray someone that thinks they know it all, a real womanizer, and are God's gift to humanity. But what I got was a down to earth character that gave a sense of being realistic, and had a good sense of humor.

Figuring out who was the culprit was a bit beyond me. I wasn't sure where I should have picked up as clues. But that might be attributed to me being new to the genre. Overall though, it was an entertaining and fast read.

Just to clear up a fact though presented in one of the other reviews. The term "downriver" is not used by Michiganders to describe any area other then Detroit. Downriver is actually the nickname of Detroit's southern suburbs. That is the area of metro Detroit where the car plant is located in the story.

"Downriver" is the 8th novel is the excellent Amos Walker P.I. fiction series. As such, it is about average for the series, which is to say better than average for the genre. In this outing, Walker goes "Downriver," which is a Detroiter's term for any part of Michigan that does not include the city. Actually, he goes to the Upper Peninsula to give a released con a ride back to Detroit. When he and the con get run off the road and the con hires him to help find $200,000 from a heist for which he was convicted but which he did not commit, Walker has his hands full. The novel contains the usual social commentary and Walker is as much a loner as ever. Regular characters like Detectives John Alderdyce and Mary Ann Thaler get only cameo appearances this time out.

Bottom line is that while this edition does not rank with "The Glass Highway" or "Sugartown," among the best Walker novels, it is still well worthwhile in its own right.