Loren D. Estleman is a prolific writer and if you read mysteries, chances are you've read one of his before. I had, but it was a long time ago. When this one came up on the Kindle daily sale, I thought it was time to refresh my memory of this writer.SUGARTOWN is good one to start with. It is the 5th in his Amos Walker, Detroit PI series... and it won the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award for best hardcover novel of 1985. As in the tradition of the best noir, it opens with a women entering the detective's office looking to hire him. Only this one has a twist: "She was a very old woman dressed entirely in black, and when she fumbled open my inner office door the aluminum tubing of the walker she was leaning on gleamed like a nickel steel against the black of her dress. I got up from behind the desk to hold the door open against the pressure of the pneumatic closer. She nodded her thanks with that jerky impatience that the very old share with the very young -- the poise complacency of age is a myth -- but she made no comment, concentrating on the involved business of setting the rubber feet down on the rug and toddling forward and then picking up the feet and setting them down again..."As you can see from this opening paragraph, Estleman is brilliant with his descriptions. Unlike another prolific writer and dialog master, Elmore Leonard, Estleman spends a lot of time describing what Amos Walker sees, such as the way people look, or the layout of a scene. Here he describes the Russian writer Alanov who is about to hire him:"His brows were thin for a Russian but absolutely level across eyes with lashes as long as a woman's. His nose had a deep dimple where the bridge should have been, as if someone had laid a stick across it years before, and twin bands of silver swooped down through his beard from the corners of his mouth and up toward his ears as if he'd drooled them."Estleman delivers dark wit and humor through the use of colorful analogies or similes, or just astute observations, for example: "She seemed as sentimental as a wrecking ball." "You had me worried there for a minute, Mr. Leposava," I said. "In my business when you get gold in every pass it's time to get a new pan." (Talking to witness of an event that happened 19 years earlier and he seemed to remember too much detail, until the last question.)"I swirled my ice around. 'I still don't know what it is you want me to do. Bodyguards always shoot second and my exploding Scripto is in the shop.' ""You know she's a easy to persuade as a flash flood"The plot is a double mystery in which Amos Walker is hired by two different people, each with a Russian connection, that ultimately ends up being one and the same case, but with so many different details the reader is unsure until the end how it will all line up. It is a good PI story, as being a winner will attest to. I also found it an intriguing read because it is set in the 1980s and it is fun to be reminded about what the world was like back then. Amos Walker is essentially a chain smoker and he is always lighting up indoors in his own office, even when not a alone and even lights up in other people's homes. "I speared my lips with a weed and let my eyes wander over the place while I got a match out its folder..." In our smoke free society, it is hard to imagine that we once lit up anywhere we pleased, although I know it is true since I remember smoking in my open cubicle at work without a thought in the early 80s. Anyway, I enjoyed the language and the story and will no doubt pick up another Estleman at some point.. .maybe next time it will be a western.
