To hear him tell it, Amos Walker is an unsuccessful man in an obsolete profession. Still, even P.I.s have a sense of honor, and Walker has always been a man who believes in paying back favors that people have done for him over the years. He owes his old friend Barry Stackpole a big one, for saving his life in a Cambodian shell crater a lifetime ago. Now Stackpole, lately a good, hard-scrounging reporter, has vanished. And finding him is the job Walker's been hired for-not once, but twice: first by Stackpole's newspaper, then by an attractive literary editor hot to track down an even hotter book the missing man's been writing. The investigatory trail becomes littered with a bewildering assortment of fresh dead bodies. Walker nearly joins the clutter when somebody rigs his steering and brakes. And a final revelation explosively narrows the distance between the tropical jungles of Asia and the concrete jungles of Detroit-and between one brand of war and another....
Since the appearance of his first novel in 1976, Loren D. Estleman has written more than 65 books and hundreds of short stories and articles. Alone (Dec 2009, Forge Books) is the second in a new series about L.A. film detective Valentino, and features Greta Garbo.
To kick off the new decade, Estleman's The Book of Murdock (eighth in the U.S. Deputy Marshal Page Murdock series) will appear in March and, to celebrate the 30 year anniversary of Private Detective Amos Walker, The Left-Handed Dollar will publish in December. It's the 20th novel in the award-winning series.
An authority on both criminal history and the American West, Estleman has been called the most critically acclaimed author of his generation. He has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award.
He has received seventeen national writing awards: four Shamuses from the Private Eye Writers of America, five Spurs from the Western Writers of America, two American Mystery Awards from Mystery Scene Magazine, two Outstanding Mystery Writer of the Year awards from Popular Fiction Monthly, two Stirrup Awards for outstanding articles in the Western Writers of America magazine, The Roundup, and three Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. In 1987, the Michigan Foundation of the Arts presented him with its award for literature. In 1997, the Michigan Library Association named him the recipient of the Michigan Author's Award. In 2007, Nicotine Kiss was named a Notable Book by the Library of Michigan.
Estleman graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Journalism. On April 27, 2002, EMU presented him with an honorary doctorate in letters. He left the job market in 1980 to write full time. He lives in Michigan and is married to writer Deborah Morgan. For more information, please visit his website: www.lorenestleman.com
