Don't Look for Me

Amos Walker #23

by Loren D. Estleman

Amos Walker doesn't mean to walk into trouble. But sometimes it finds him, regardless. The missing woman has left a handwritten note that said, "Don't look for me." Any P.I. would take that as a challenge, especially when he found out that she'd left the same message once before, when having an illicit affair.

But this time it's different. The trail leads Walker to an herbal remedies store, where the beautiful young clerk knows nothing about the dead body in the basement…or about any illegal activity that might be connected to the corpse. She is, however, interested in Walker's body, and he discovers he's interested in hers as well.

But he can't tarry long, for the Mafia could be involved…or maybe there's a connection to the porno film studio where the missing woman's former maid now works. But when two Mossad agents accost Walker—and then are brutally killed—he realizes he's discovered a plot far darker run by someone more deadly than either the Detroit Mafia or a two-bit porn pusher.

Who—or what—could be so viciously murderous? Walker has few clues, and knows only that with every new murder he is no closer to solving the case. When he finally gets a break, he recognizes the silken, deadly hand of a nemesis who nearly killed him twice before…and this time may finish the job.
In Loren D. Estleman's Don't Look For Me, Amos Walker's up to his neck in dames, drugs…and murder, again

Genres: Mystery, Detective, Fiction, Crime

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2014

About the author

Loren 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

Reviews

[James Thane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the twenty-third entry in Loren Estleman's series featuring Detroit P.I., Amos Walker. Walker is an old-school detective and this is an old-school, hard-boiled series in the best sense of the tradition. Walker is a direct descendant of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, and the Detroit streets that he drives in his souped-up Oldsmobile Cutlass are at least as mean as the ones in L.A. that were once walked by his erstwhile predecessors.

As the book opens, Walker is hired by a wealthy financier to find his much-younger wife who has left him for the second time. The wife, Cecelia Wynn, has left a note that is short and to the point: "Don't look for me." Walker agrees to do so in spite of the note, and ascertains fairly quickly that the missing spouse was unhappy and masking her despondency with shopping, lunches with her girlfriends, drinking heavily, and taking herbal remedies.

On leaving, Cecelia seems to have left behind her stash of supplements and so Walker begins by visiting the shop where she got them. There's a very interesting woman behind the counter and a dead body in the basement, and from here things get both very interesting and extremely confusing. Drug runners, porn stars, the Mafia and a couple of foreign agents all make an appearance while poor Amos attempts to somehow stay alive, stay out of jail and complete his mission.

Thirty-four years after his initial appearance in Motor City Blue, Amos is more than a little world-weary, and who can blame the poor guy? He's had to endure a great deal through the years, investigating any number of dangerous and complex cases, getting beat up, jailed, and otherwise abused, and all the while holding up the traditions of one of the most sacred sub-genres in the crime fiction business. It's a nasty job, but crime fiction fans can be grateful for the fact that Amos and his creator are still on the job and at the top of their games all these years down the road.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t Look For Me is the 23rd Amos Walker novel. Amos is a Detroit Shamus of the old school variety - he drives a Cutlass, has a walk-up office, smokes, has a bottle in his desk and is a technophobe, having just acquired a cell phone in the last several installments/books of the series. (And he’s not averse to donning a fedora - at least in the earlier books.)

The Estleman/Walker books are also “hard boiled” - so if you’re a fan of Chandler or Hammett or MacDonald, etc., do yourself a favor and pick up one of these books.

In this adventure our hero’s client is a wealthy man whose younger wife has gone walkabout - again. And quicker than one can mutter “Farewell, My Lovely” Amos is caught up in a string of murders, a drug ring, Mid-East espionage, the mafia and a much younger woman - all with an old nemesis lurking in the background.

What keeps this book from a five star rating is the conclusion - it’s rushed and incomplete - but the ride getting there is worth it.

[Val · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not Estelman's best venture. Perhaps both he and Amos Walker are just aging past their shelf-life. No, that can't be it. Better authors than he have lasted far longer and written far better. As his client says to Amos, " I wish I knew what you were talking about half the time." I had the same thought. It was ludicrous to have the mafia, drug lords, an Asian queen-pin, Israeli secret agents and Detroit police force all involved in the same case. It should have been funny. A better writer would have brought out the absurdity of it all. Here it just never seemed to end. Until it did, very unsatisfactorily.

[Carolyn Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful descriptions. Terrific dialogue. Plenty of action. Amos is aging, but not slowing down. But was his triumph over his nemesis too easy?

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have a taste for hardboiled PI, grab this -- it doesn't get any better.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LIKE THE DETECTIVE; SARCASTIC, PERSISTENT, CAN SEE THRU FALSE STORIES, TRIES TO KEEP DRINKING TO A MINIMUM
=

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like to challenge myself by reading a type of book that I've never read before. I joined a random book club of my son's preschool teachers and took this book out of the library. This one was extremely tough for me to get through. I want to say I read about 200 pages and still had no clue what was happening. Why do I do this to myself? Detective fiction clearly is not my jam. I felt like I had to read sentences over and over again to understand what the main character was saying. I folded a page, 221, where a character in the book says to Amos, I wish I knew what you were talking about half the time. I literally laughed out loud, me too pal! The constant "wit" and "detective speak" exhausted me in this book. It was constant and ridiculous. I enjoyed when the main character showed human attributes like when he has relations with a character in the book. Otherwise this book was lost on me. I still don't know what happened lol. I did some research on the book after finishing it and learned there are more books to this story. Maybe that was my issue? Sorry for the long review about nothing. I'm just happy I was able to finish.

[Gloria Feit · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Don’t look for me” is the entire content of a handwritten note left for the newest client of Amos Walker, to wit: a full partner in an investment company “with gray temples and an office with a view of two countries” - - that would be the US and Canada - - whose wife, 14 years her junior, has disappeared for the second time in the six years they’ve been married Her husband suspects anything from her having left him for a younger man to having met with foul play.

Mr. Estleman is the author of over 70 novels, and this is the 23rd entry in the series. Walker, a former cop who carries an honorary sheriff’s star, is now a private detective renowned for finding missing persons. There is immediate evidence of the author’s trademark wit, to which the new client responds: “The humor I can take or let alone.” Not so the reader. His descriptions of several characters are exquisite portraits. Of his new client’s choice of attire: “a suit the color and approximate weight of ground fog,” and of the man himself, “If he was so rich, why wasn’t he smart?” The superintendent of his building was “on the tattered outer edge of middle age.” Inspector John Alderdyce, of the Homicide division of the Detroit Police Department, who he’d known “longer than anyone living,” and who is Walker’s “bane and salvation, . . . looks like a grizzly bear carved with a chainsaw from a living oak.”

Walker soon realizes that “a simple missing-persons case had turned into something else, like most things in a bad dream.” It ultimately involves the Detroit Mafia, a porno film studio, and a ‘Dragon Lady’ nemesis of Walker, “a psychopath with a two hundred IQ and more liquid assets than an emirate . .. ten times smarter than I am and twice as insane. Make that three times.”

A fast-paced and consistently witty entry in this terrific series, it is highly recommended. ( It should perhaps be noted that the author's newest book, Ragtime Cowboys, is due out later this month.)

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read all of Loren Estleman's Amos Walker mysteries and he continues to keep the series fresh, engaging and exciting, a rare feat for any series, let alone one that has 23 books to its credit.

Mr. Estleman is truly gifted with dialogue and gives Amos a distinct voice like no other in crime fiction today that I can recall - except perhaps for Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins.

Amos is what some would consider a dinosaur in today's techno world. He seems to have been born in another age, more akin to Sam Spade than Magnum PI. He likes to drink, although he has kicked his pain meds habit. And while he may be getter older, Don't Look For Me shows Amos still at the top of his game.

This time out, he's hired by an older wealthy businessman to find his much younger wife who has left with a note simply stating: don't look for me. When Amos visits a health food store where the wife was known to frequent, a simple missing person case crosses over into something much more deadly - as a truly sinister baddie from a previous book is involved. Soon Amos, along with his ally police det. John Alderyce, realize they are up to it in their proverbial necks.

I won't provide more details so as not to spoil the fun. But for any reader who demands a cut above your standard crime fiction, you can't go wrong with Amos Walker.

[DP Lyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t Look For Me by Loren Estleman

Forge Books
March 18, 2014
ISBN-10: 0765331217
ISBN-13: 978-0765331212
288 pages

I have been a fan for years but this story is one of his best.

Loren Estleman writes great books and has created a truly iconic protagonist in Amos Walker. I have been a fan for years but this story is one of his best. Old enemies, new enemies, and Walker's usual difficulties playing well with others are all part of this fast-paced and convoluted story. When a wife disappears and her final note simple states Don’t Look For Me, Amos is brought is to find her. But what begins as a simple missing spouse case becomes something else again—-murder, drugs, foreign agents, organized crime, and much more. As the body count rises, Amos finds himself involved with a young woman known simply as Smoke who just might be more than she seems. An old, tricky, and ruthless nemesis enters stage left and the story kicks to an entirely new level. Loved it.

DP Lyle, award-winning author of the Dub Walker and Samantha Cody thriller series

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Don't Look for Me" is the 23rd book in Loren D. Estleman's Amos Walker detective novels. This is the first of Estleman's books I have read and it's certainly an ok way to spend an afternoon. His detective, Amos Walker, is a bit of a cliche in many aspects. His relationships with law enforcement bristle as do so many of the detectives depicted in current detective fiction. He is damaged physically, but functional. And he meanders into casual sex with one of his seemingly peripheral female characters. Who all fall casually, but decidedly in serious like with him after one go-round in the sheets. Are any of these bad things? Not necessarily. And the trope of the satisfied female looking for more strikes me more and more often as male detective writer wishful thinking than as additive to the detective story. But the overall effect is to flatten the reader's interest and diminish one's pleasure in the read. Estleman does have a great knack for the one liner and it may be worth reading these detective stories for that talent alone.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every time I pick up a Loren Estleman book, its like finding an old friend again. These are books that I read slowly, to savor and enjoy the use of language and how the story builds. Estelman is the master of hard boiled detective stories and this is a fine example of his work, if not the best.

Amos Walker finds himself doing what he does best - missing persons cases - but this time, the missing person doesn't seem to want to be found, and further more doesn't seem to have taken anything with her. Soon, Walker finds himself tangled in a much bigger problem that spins increasingly larger and out of his control.

The book was satisfying, with plenty of great lines and gritty, noir feel, but I found the climax disappointing and sudden, with the main villain a bit out of character from previous books, which was ultimately a let down, as this character has been in two previous novels and well-established.

Overall though, a satisfying read and recommended for detective fans.

[Jerry Peace · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Andre 3000 croons,"What's cooler than being cool?", I answer, "Amos Walker." Estleman refuses again to disappoint with this book, which is as always about persons rather than residue, the tainted triumphs and courageous flaws instead of DNA threads. Noir should always be people but Estleman happily again adds wisecracks. Best lines- "...and a shiny ice machine in the tunnel between the north ans south wings stood on the same spot where the old one had been removed after a local rapper who'd called himself Man One was found slowly decomposing inside it. They might not have found him even then, except when all the hotels were filled the last time the Tigers were in the Series there'd been a heavy run on ice and the last several highballs had tasted strongly of Dead Gangsta." If you don't just love that, you're no Tiger fan.

[Joe Slavinsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amos Walker is a throwback. A hard-boiled, noir private eye, barely scratching out an existence, yet he's good at what he does, despite all the crap that comes his way during the process. This is Estleman's 23rd Walker novel, and they are all gems. In this one, what starts out as a missing person job, turns into something far more dangerous, as Walker comes upon signs of an old, extremely dangerous enemy. This person has threatened Walker's life in the past, and would have no qualms about killing him, if they run into one another. Estleman's books are page-turners, not in the respect that they are non-stop action, but that he tells such a great story, that you can't wait to find out what happens next. If you haven't read any of the Walker novels, you can start anywhere along the line, as they all stand well on their own.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I went out ... to what promised to be the first decent day of spring, with the sun turning the frost on the winter-killed lawn into dew. I thought I heard a bird singing, but it turned out to be a sanitation truck backing up in the next block."

This is the type of writing I love. Well done Estleman - another wonderful story.

Hired to find a run-away wife, Amos Walker, a Detroit P.I., gets involved with drugs and murder and the Wyandotte Michigan, police.

In addition to being great stories, I enjoy reading Estleman's works because he uses Detroit as the background for many of his novels and I am a born and raised Detroit boy.

[Michael Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another in the Amos Walker low keyed Detroit private eye series. Part three of an old story line but no need to have the other books first. A sad ending to a case that started out with few clues and kept changing as new info raised new lines of investigation. Not the best of the Amos stories but a good read and it is always nice to revisit old friends as they age unlike some characters that seem to never get old or have all their cases just days apart.

[John Kues · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprized by the dedication -"In memory of Stuart Kaminsky, who was as good as he wrote; which was going some", mainly because Kaminsky died in 2009, and he is one of my favorites. As usual, this novel had lots of funny one liners, self-depricating humor, and puzzles. Some of the plots lines take a leap of faith, but that is ok.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty trashy rubbish. Has a villain who only actually shows up in the last twenty pages and is talked about in hushed tones like Voldemort for most of the book. So silly. The cheesiest of writing, everyone only speaks in witty banter. No one actually cares when anyone else turns up dead, and there's no suspense at all.

[SuperWendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twisty-turny plot that sends Amos down a rabbit hole when all he needs to accomplish if find one runaway wife. Snappy dialogue, lots of action. I wasn't in love with the ending (the resolution to the missing angle seemed like a cop-out), but a solid entry in the series.

[Lou]

This was a fairly good book though it seemed to bog down at times with a lot of info about Detroit and surrounding areas. I think for those more familiar withe area, it would have been better.

[Brucie · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting episode in a classic series of hard-boiled detective in Detroit, Michigan!

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author dedicated this novel to the late Stuart (M.) Kaminski who passed away in 2009. An excellent story dedicated to a great writer.Number 23 in the Amos Walker series.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent Amos Walker book. Intriguing mystery, great characterization and snappy dialogue that is an Estleman staple.

[Mary Keroson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read.

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

My second in the series. I love the wisecracking but the plot this time is really far-fetched, and Amos doesn't let us in on what he knows all the time, a mistake in 1st person writing.

[Dana Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, what a complete waste of time this was. Nothing like I expected, and not in any good sense. Plus the ending? Absolute trash. Won’t be reading from this author again.

[P.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although there are a number of previous books in the Amos Walker private investigator series, this was my first. I was thrilled to learn that A) the book is written in first person POV, and B) it's set in Detroit in my home state of Michigan. Amos Walker is a gritty, middle aged old-school private eye, complete with the slang and banter of a noir private eye of 60 years ago, adapted quite well into the modern age (the book was published in 2014). While the jargon is quite overdone and very outdated at times, the dialog rolls along smoothly enough, if you can read between the lines and figure out when the Walker character is joking or being serious (and he's apparently almost never serious). Hired by a wealthy financier to find his runaway wife, the story quickly escalates and takes Walker to a health store and an encounter with a New Age type named Smoke. All good so far, but then the narrative takes a huge and unfounded leap into murder, the mafia, the Israeli special forces, and an international baddie that Walker has encountered before. Cue the obligatory seduction of Walker by Smoke, which he thankfully doesn't go into detail over. Walker's contact with the police department gets involved when a second murder occurs and we get his brief detainment, a shootout in a warehouse, and yet another murder. All this amid more banter and P.I. jargon than you can shake a stick at. And the original missing wife? We don't learn what happened to her until the very last few pages, and even then it's only hinted at. While I love P.L. first person narratives and especially love any book set in Michigan, I'm not looking forward to continuing this series, though I do have two more of the Walker series in my to-read pile. All in all, the storyline tried to do too much and got irrevocably muddled, and the old-time P.I. jargon lost its novelty within the first few chapters. Not one of my favorites by any means.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, Loren Estleman writes the best hard-boiled-type dialogue in the mystery field. Private investigator Amos Walker is hired to find the missing wife of a wealthy man. Quickly, he finds himself wrapped up in illegal marijuana operation and murder, both involving the nefarious criminal mastermind Charlotte Sing. Amos butts his head against the cops and fights off attempts on his life. The story, told from Amos' perspective, moves quickly, with snappy dialogue on every page. Both Amos and the secondary characters are interesting and mostly everybody behaves reasonably and intelligently. I found the big reveal at the end a little confusing, but got the general idea. Overall, the book is entertaining and a decent read.

[Kay Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you can’t come up with a new plot, you make up a new detective. When that doesn’t work you recycle one. This may not technically be recycled but it sure feels like it is. Walker is asked to find a rich mans wife. By the end of the book he’s wandered around Detroit, worked with Alderdyce and run into Charlotte Sing (again). Zzzzzzz. I can’t even remember what happened with the wife. One of his rules, you sleep with Walker and you die, still holds true but it’s so stale. Maybe he just needs to hang it up. And I’m really tired of the Cutlass. It’s lost whatever charm it had 20 years ago. Give him something interesting like Tesla someone gives him.

[Toni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amos Walker, a former cop turned PI looks for missing persons. Hired to find a missing wife, he stumbles onto other STUFF and the story goes into other tangents. The mysteries involved did not make me want to try to figure things out; this was a respite book that could be read without doing much thinking. I guess there is some purpose to such books but I just didn't enjoy this one. (OMG - this isn't even the book I WANTED to read; there are multiple titles and I checked the wrong one out of the library! I'll try for the right one. geesh!)