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Amos Walker #5
Sugartown
Detective Amos Walker's fifth case takes him into the crazy labyrinth of Detroit's Polish emigre community where it intersects with the decay and corruption of the city's criminal underworld
220 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
54 people are currently reading
152 people want to read
About the author
Loren D. Estleman
314 books279 followersLoren D. Estleman is an American writer of detective and Western fiction. He writes with a manual typewriter.
Estleman is most famous for his novels about P.I. Amos Walker. Other series characters include Old West marshal Page Murdock and hitman Peter Macklin. He has also written a series of novels about the history of crime in Detroit (also the setting of his Walker books.) His non-series works include Bloody Season, a fictional recreation of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and several novels and stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.
Series:
* Amos Walker Mystery
* Valentino Mystery
* Detroit Crime Mystery
* Peter Macklin Mystery
* Page Murdock Mystery
Estleman is most famous for his novels about P.I. Amos Walker. Other series characters include Old West marshal Page Murdock and hitman Peter Macklin. He has also written a series of novels about the history of crime in Detroit (also the setting of his Walker books.) His non-series works include Bloody Season, a fictional recreation of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and several novels and stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.
Series:
* Amos Walker Mystery
* Valentino Mystery
* Detroit Crime Mystery
* Peter Macklin Mystery
* Page Murdock Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 reviews
August 25, 2020
An elderly woman struggles to get to Amos Walker's office, asking him to track down her grandson, who was adopted by her son's sister-in-law after the rest of the family was gunned down by her son. Walker treats her very kindly, and tracks down one of the detectives to start his tracing. He finds the sister-in-law via the son's coin magazine subscription only to learn he drowned in Cabo. When he tells the grandmother, she asks him to use the rest of her retainer to find what is purported to be a family heirloom: a silver cross with inlaid lapis lazuli and garnet stones, which was in her son's home. Meanwhile, Walker picks up a second case trying to buy off a someone threatening a dissident Russian writer, who is also a collector of fine antiques. The stories intertwine and Walker spends a weekend being drugged/interrogated to find the missing artifact. Dogged at they come, Walker solves several mysteries in this one. 3.5 stars.
February 8, 2012
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.
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.
June 7, 2014
I really enjoyed reading this book. The dialogue was quirky, story moved along at a quick pace, and the characters were enjoyable.
Loren Estleman was a Shamus award for this one. A great read.
Loren Estleman was a Shamus award for this one. A great read.
February 8, 2024
I have read Estleman and liked some of his work but his Amos Walker series just doesn't do it for me.
Reading the Goodreads review by Atticus nicely sums up why.
I have taken the liberty to quote:
"I like Estleman's short stories a lot, but I have never been able to enjoy any of his novels. Reading Sugartown, I think I finally figured out why. Estleman mimics the style of whatever genre he's writing in - mystery, western, suspense, neo-Victorian - so well that he has a tendency to overindulge in that style. This is why I think Estleman's short stories work better: the page limit imposed by that form requires him to curtail such exhaustive description.
Another criticism: as in some of the novels by John D. Macdonald (who recommends this book on the cover), the dialogue between Amos Walker and other characters at times becomes so impossibly hip and witty that it takes the reader out of the book. If the author is using the PI mode as a type of social commentary on urban decay (which he seems to be, based upon his lengthy descriptions of Detroit), this dialogue strikes a false note.
In addition to all of this, the plot of this book became increasingly melodramatic and hard-to-follow."
Reading the Goodreads review by Atticus nicely sums up why.
I have taken the liberty to quote:
"I like Estleman's short stories a lot, but I have never been able to enjoy any of his novels. Reading Sugartown, I think I finally figured out why. Estleman mimics the style of whatever genre he's writing in - mystery, western, suspense, neo-Victorian - so well that he has a tendency to overindulge in that style. This is why I think Estleman's short stories work better: the page limit imposed by that form requires him to curtail such exhaustive description.
Another criticism: as in some of the novels by John D. Macdonald (who recommends this book on the cover), the dialogue between Amos Walker and other characters at times becomes so impossibly hip and witty that it takes the reader out of the book. If the author is using the PI mode as a type of social commentary on urban decay (which he seems to be, based upon his lengthy descriptions of Detroit), this dialogue strikes a false note.
In addition to all of this, the plot of this book became increasingly melodramatic and hard-to-follow."
March 20, 2025
This book was written in 1985, book 5 in the Amos Walker series which I recently discovered. So descriptive phrases like a candle the size of a big toe.
Amos is a private detective in the Detroit area and has been recently hired by an elderly Polish widow to find her missing grandson. She emigrated 2 years ago and sold her valuable jewelry to pay for passage to America. Her husband was a top chef in Poland.
A duel storyline with another job protecting a Russian poet who is being threatened by the KGB according to his interpreter.
Interesting detective work and speaking to the police officers and the overlapping point of interest of the religious artifact that keeps popping up.
Surprise ending and enjoyable Goodread.
Amos is a private detective in the Detroit area and has been recently hired by an elderly Polish widow to find her missing grandson. She emigrated 2 years ago and sold her valuable jewelry to pay for passage to America. Her husband was a top chef in Poland.
A duel storyline with another job protecting a Russian poet who is being threatened by the KGB according to his interpreter.
Interesting detective work and speaking to the police officers and the overlapping point of interest of the religious artifact that keeps popping up.
Surprise ending and enjoyable Goodread.
October 9, 2020
This is a very good read - not just for the mystery aspect. It's a great mystery, but Estleman goes far beyond the norms of the genre with the tone he sets, the way he captures mood of Detroit, and his descriptives/Walker's digressions.
Case in point: "I bent down and took her chin and turned her head and fixed that. The needle came to the end of the record meanwhile and the arm swept back and the machine turned itself off with a discreet click, like a bellhop letting himself out of the honeymoon suite."
Case in point: "I bent down and took her chin and turned her head and fixed that. The needle came to the end of the record meanwhile and the arm swept back and the machine turned itself off with a discreet click, like a bellhop letting himself out of the honeymoon suite."
August 27, 2020
I just love the Amos Walker books, flaws and political problems not withstanding. I assume Estleman is painting a picture of a certain slice of life in a particular place and a given point in time. I think what I mean is that the occasional bit of racism and/or sexism is not gratuitous, even though it is grating. (And compared to what we are seeing in the streets, in people's homes and at the highest levels of government these days, almost innocuous.)
November 21, 2024
Not too bad of a book. Parts are quite super slow/repetitive and then all of a sudden the last 10% are one plot twist or reveal after the next. As if there had been an outline that got filled in beginning from the start, and having to cut short at the end.
Would perhaps read again, but only if I got very very very bored...
Would perhaps read again, but only if I got very very very bored...
March 9, 2022
It’s been a long time since I read a crime novel that unfolds a complicated story that is unfolded so carefully throughout. While I am not so keen on some of the gumshoe cliches, I am plenty keen on a well crafted story.
December 13, 2022
I now know why this entry in the Walker series won awards. Three cases that start out as separate cases that somehow becomes one. All with the clever and noir dialogue ever present in a Walker book. Perfect.
May 21, 2021
1980s Detroit. Stylistically, Raymond Chandler meets Elmore Leonard. Tightly crafted plot.
April 20, 2023
A bit too convoluted.
Want to read
December 25, 2018Synopsis: spring for Amos brings trouble; he's looking for a missing grandson. Plus a Russian novelist thinks someone is out to kill him.
February 22, 2017
The real character in Estleman's Amos Walker stories is the falling apart city of Detroit!
But there are bodies to be found and mysteries to be solved!
But there are bodies to be found and mysteries to be solved!
June 9, 2015
Dryer than sand, more hard-boiled than ceramic eggs, makes Dashiell Hammett read like James Michener. Estleman has the hard-boiled detective genre nailed to the wall.
Which raises the question: has the genre reached a point of diminishing returns? The logical conclusion would be books with one chapter, stories with one page, pages with one paragraph, paragraphs with one sentence, sentences with one word, words with one letter, stories so hard-boiled and fast-moving they consist of a blank sheet of paper.
For this reason, the rating of Worth my time (4 stars) I think is the highest I can honestly rate any book in this genre. Not to take anything away from the enjoyment of reading it.
I had to come back and edit this review several months after writing it. Since then, I have read and rated three of Estleman's books 5 stars:
A Smile on the Face of the Tiger (The Amos Walker Series #15)
King of the Corner (Detroit Crime Series #3)
Thunder City (Detroit Crime Series #7)
While Estleman is consistently good, these rise above to the classic level.
Which raises the question: has the genre reached a point of diminishing returns? The logical conclusion would be books with one chapter, stories with one page, pages with one paragraph, paragraphs with one sentence, sentences with one word, words with one letter, stories so hard-boiled and fast-moving they consist of a blank sheet of paper.
For this reason, the rating of Worth my time (4 stars) I think is the highest I can honestly rate any book in this genre. Not to take anything away from the enjoyment of reading it.
I had to come back and edit this review several months after writing it. Since then, I have read and rated three of Estleman's books 5 stars:
A Smile on the Face of the Tiger (The Amos Walker Series #15)
King of the Corner (Detroit Crime Series #3)
Thunder City (Detroit Crime Series #7)
While Estleman is consistently good, these rise above to the classic level.
May 2, 2019
I like Estleman's short stories a lot, but I have never been able to enjoy any of his novels. Reading Sugartown, I think I finally figured out why. Estleman mimics the style of whatever genre he's writing in - mystery, western, suspense, neo-Victorian - so well that he has a tendency to overindulge in that style. This is why I think Estleman's short stories work better: the page limit imposed by that form requires him to curtail such exhaustive description.
Another criticism: as in some of the novels by John D. Macdonald (who recommends this book on the cover), the dialogue between Amos Walker and other characters at times becomes so impossibly hip and witty that it takes the reader out of the book. If the author is using the PI mode as a type of social commentary on urban decay (which he seems to be, based upon his lengthy descriptions of Detroit), this dialogue strikes a false note.
In addition to all of this, the plot of this book became increasingly melodramatic and hard-to-follow. I'm sure it became even more tangled once the subplot involving KGB agents took the stage, but I didn't read far enough to find out.
Another criticism: as in some of the novels by John D. Macdonald (who recommends this book on the cover), the dialogue between Amos Walker and other characters at times becomes so impossibly hip and witty that it takes the reader out of the book. If the author is using the PI mode as a type of social commentary on urban decay (which he seems to be, based upon his lengthy descriptions of Detroit), this dialogue strikes a false note.
In addition to all of this, the plot of this book became increasingly melodramatic and hard-to-follow. I'm sure it became even more tangled once the subplot involving KGB agents took the stage, but I didn't read far enough to find out.
July 12, 2013
3.5-As with the first four books in this long series, I was entertained by Amos Walker, a likeable, hard-headed, wise guy PI. I also enjoy the author's writing style, but the plot takes some unlikely turns and is wrapped up in an improbable fashion. I'm finding this to be an enjoyable series I will likely go back to a couple of times a year to see what happens in the next book and to marvel at Walker's ability to survive some pretty hard knocks.
January 17, 2023
I could go over the plot, but I won't. This is my 6th read of this series (one out of order) and I'll just say this is the best Amos Walker book since Motor City Blue and maybe th best period. It's a very hardboiled mystery and Loren Estleman really raises his craft with this one. It kind of shifts into a strange gear in the last 5o pages or so, but still a 5 star for this genre. If you like hardboiled Sugartown is sweeeeet.
March 9, 2012
A fine example of spare noir style, but keeps from being superlative as a result of Walker's highly improbable confrontation with one of the suspects in the book's final act. It might have passed when this book was written almost 30 years ago, but not so much now.
April 29, 2010
RATING: 4.5
Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 reviews