- Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: St Martin's Press; New edition edition (25 Nov 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0765343738
- ISBN-13: 978-0765343734
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.4 x 2.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,400,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
“Loren D. Estleman makes his strongest stand for the pure, unvarnished glory of the classic American private eye in "Retro".”
--"The New York Times Book Review"
“Nobody does the hard-boiled private eye novel better than Loren D. Estleman.”
--"San Diego"" Union Tribune" on "Retro"
"Loren D. Estleman is a master. He is one of my heroes. If you love the classic private eye novel and haven't met Amos Walker, man, you are in for a treat."
--Harlan Coben
--"The New York Times Book Review"
“Nobody does the hard-boiled private eye novel better than Loren D. Estleman.”
--"San Diego"" Union Tribune" on "Retro"
"Loren D. Estleman is a master. He is one of my heroes. If you love the classic private eye novel and haven't met Amos Walker, man, you are in for a treat."
--Harlan Coben
Product Description
Walker has made a lot of friends - and more than a few enemies - in his years as a detective in Detroit, but he finds more trouble than he expected when he agrees to grant the deathbed wish of Beryl Garnet, a successful madam, for her son to get her ashes when she's gone. Walker successfully locates her son in Canada, where he has been evading the law since protesting the Vietnam War in the 1960s, but no sooner has Walker settled back in Detroit that the news comes that Garnet's son is dead. Now Walker is the prime suspect. He has little choice but to find out who might have done the deed and tried to pin the blame on him...and in the process he discovers another murder, the one of 1940s boxer Curtis Smallwood, who happens to have been the dead man's father. Complicating matters, the two murders, fifty-three years apart, were committed with the very same gun. The same gun, in a place impossible for a gun to be.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Estleman is the finest of storytellers
13 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
I've become a fan of Loren Estleman. Whether he's writing of the Old West or contmporary Detroit, the man is simply an extraordinary storyteller.
Amos Walker, former homicide detective and now struggling private investigator is asked to locate the long-ago runaway son of a local madam, so he can deliver her ashes to him.
What begins as an oddball assignment turns into something far more when the son is murdered in his hotel room near the Detroit airport. Walker becomes a prime suspect.
From that point on, Walker walks through past and present on a quest to find the real murderer - and solve a murder from decades past.
There's a marvelous grittiness to Estleman's writing. His characters feel real, the plot twists and turns with not a few sub-plots to keep you guessing. And the ending leaves you wanting more Estleman. He's that good.
Jerry
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Very strong hard-boiled mystery
3 Aug 2004
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
The Amos Walker series remains one of the best.
24 May 2004
Format:Hardcover
There was a time when I was a steady mystery reader. Those days are long gone-I sort of burned out on the genre-but I still take in the occasional mystery. Mostly Spenser novels, but I'll throw in another author every now and then.
However, back when I was a mystery junkie, Amos Walker was one of my favorite reads. Loren D. Estleman is a first rate writer in the noir tradition. He's equally adept at both plot development as well as characterization. Although Estleman has a few different characters he deals with, Amos Walker is his masterpiece. Walker is a gritty, hardboiled former Viet Nam vet now working the detective trade in Detroit.
Estleman paints the fringes of Detroit with a master painters brush and Walker is right at home in that gritty urban landscape.
In retro Walker is present at the bedside of an old acquaintance, a madam and self described "former mob moll", who asks Amos, as a dying wish, to see to it that her cremains get back to her long lost son. Walker agrees and has no problem tracking down the son-he's a former draft deserter still living in Canada. He presents him with his mother's cremains and departs, only to learn shortly thereafter that the son has been shot dead and Walker is considered a suspect. Walker determines he has to straighten things out, if only to clear himself, and thus he enters the web of deception and murder.
As with all Walker books, there is lots of action. The characters are well written and very memorable. Walker's hard charging, straight ahead, no nonsense approach is in full display. The plot is fascinating, as usual. This is another grand page turner in a long line of grand page turner's.
In fact, I so enjoyed this one that I'm going to have to go back and revisit Walker for a while. I'm sure there have been several entries in the series since my burn out a while back. I may have burned out-I'm glad Estleman didn't!
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