Monkey in the middle

Trends in crime fiction wax and wane, but Estleman's Amos Walker, a hard-boiled PI straight off Chandler's mean streets, keeps shuffling along well into the twenty-first century, burning shoe leather, lighting cigarettes, and sipping rye as if it were 1947. In his thirtieth adventure, the Detroit gumshoe is grieving the death of his ex-wife while trying to protect two people: his client, a naive investigative journalist and former researcher for a celebrated crime novelist (clearly based on Elmore Leonard), and a whistleblower, Abelia Hunt, who has raised the ire of the NSA. It's a complex story, full of switchbacks, but the real joy here is watching Walker employ old-school detecting techniques in a decidedly new world of cell phones and high-tech tracking devices. Estleman can sling similes with Chandlerian brio (driving through a rainstorm, Walker notes that "the wipers whooshed and thumped like idiots, signifying nothing"), and his flair for describing a bedraggled cityscape is as razor-sharp as ever ("Roofs sagged, chimneys leaned; every porch was seceding from the rest of the house."). Those who can't get enough of fast-talking PIs are in for a treat.

Razor-edged prose that Raymond Chandler would appreciate lifts Estleman's excellent 30th outing for Detroit PI Amos Walker (after Cutthroat Dogs). Walker has just learned of the death of his ex-wife, Catherine, when he takes on a new client, Shane Sothern. Sothern, who has built a reputation as a top-notch research assistant, is seeking to become an investigative reporter, but he fears he's being surveilled by someone looking to find a valuable source. Walker confirms that when he tails his client himself, spotting other watchers who look like feds. In the process, he discovers that Sothern's source is a fugitive whistleblower charged with leaking government secrets. The case turns into a murder inquiry, and Walker's life is further complicated when he learns that Catherine had also been under surveillance. The portrayal of the Motor City (the PI refers to a bleak urban landscape as "the pipe dream of a dull-witted former governor who knew nothing of meth labs and crack houses, now waiting their turn at demolition") is as vivid as James Ellroy's L.A. Estleman makes sustaining a long-running series' high quality look easy. (June)