Customer Reviews

Sugartown (The Amos Walker Series #5)

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Loren Estleman writes in the author's notes that follow the story at the end of this i-books edition of "Sugartown," that the novel was his angriest in the series. Interestingly, Estleman places the source of his anger as the backdrop for the story. In the early 1980s, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young made a legally shaky eminent domain deal with General Motors that forced hundreds of long time residents from their homes so that a new assembly plant could be built. The displaced homeowners got a very raw deal and a historic neighborhood was destroyed.

But the story Estleman weaves around these events is actually one of Amos Walker's more lively and fun. For once he finds a love interest to lighten his dreary existance. And the two cases he investigates involving Eastern European immigrants lead him in some interesting directions. Overall, this makes the fifth Amos Walker book the best so far in the series (I've been reading them in order) a fact which was confirmed when the book won the Shamus Award for best private eye novel of 1984. This i-books edition also includes inaddition to the newly published author's notes, a recent vintage Amos Walker short story at the end. Think of it as dessert after a fine meal.

Loren Estleman continues his excellent series of tough PI Amos Walker, working the mean streets of Motor City, complete with great thumbnail description, wiseguy dialogue, and rife with the sardonic simile and metaphor. This time Walker's missing-persons case takes him into the historic Polish section of Detroit, being quietly devestated by GM backed eminent domain, and mixing Amos up with Russian emigre writers, illegal religious articles traffickers and possible KGB agents. Not to mention encountering the gorgeous book editor Amos will meet again in Every Brilliant Eye, all the while finding a bit of illusive love with a nurse about whom he says "there are women that can be had, and there are women that can only be borrowed". Alas, Amos again must realize his limitations.

Loren Estleman is doing as well with this genre as anyone. His books are great reads--lively, sharp and tough--and, yes, I am a fan and the rating reflects that.