Edsel

Detroit #4

by Loren D. Estleman

The Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of the acclaimed Detroit Trilogy returns with a hard-hitting tale of power-hungry executives, self-righteous union bosses, ruthless mobsters, and the biggest flop ever to roll off a Motor City assembly line.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Crime

291 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1995

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

[Larry Bassett · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a while since I have started a book one day and finished it the next and loved it the whole time.

Uncle Tom bought an Edsel in the late 1950s. He drove it to a family event at Aunt Carol and Uncle Chet’s house on Blind Lake in Michigan. http://www.lakeplace.com/lakefinder/m.... The lake was one of the Michigan “muck” lakes which meant you had to get out to the raft in the middle of the lake to swim. I remember the big smile on Uncle Tom’s face when he drove up in the Edsel. All the cousins were very impressed and wanted a ride and to work the push-button transmission! Potential auto buyers were not as enthusiastic and Uncle Tom was not to be the leading edge of a new car trend. I hope the failure of the Edsel is not considered a spoiler.

The Edsel was an automobile marque that was planned, developed, and manufactured by the Ford Motor Company during the 1958, 1959, and 1960 model years. The vehicle was planned as both a “new” product; and, product line for Ford, which would help Ford to make significant inroads into the market share of both General Motors and Chrysler; and thus, close the gap between GM and Ford in the domestic American automotive market, allowing Ford to share that market more equally. But contrary to Ford's internal plans and projections, the Edsel never gained popularity with contemporary American car buyers and sold poorly. The Ford Motor Company lost millions of dollars on the Edsel's development, manufacturing and marketing.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel

I grew up near Detroit, the auto capital of the world at that time. This novel captures a bit of that area and era and was especially enjoyable to me for that reason. The first twenty or so pages had dozens of Michigan references and allusions: Al Kaline, Tahquamenon Falls, Penobscot Building, Hedge’s Wigwam, J.L. Hudson’s, and on and on with the fifties in almost every paragraph.

Connie Minor, our hero/journalist, has come upon hard times as the local tabloids went out of business and he lost his syndicated column that had been so successful during prohibition but could not survive the depression. He lost his status as “Detroit’s …preferred choice of movie stars and underworld luminaries.” Time to explore new territory as he worked in an ad agency, the next step for many out of work journalists.

The new territory comes to him. His past work has earned him a sturdy reputation by at least one Ford executive which leads to a substantial job offer that places Minor at the apex of the company as it attempts to reassume its leading position in the auto industry. As you read you will have a chance to learn about the Ford Motor Company and its founding family. You will tour the massive Rouge plant where 65,000 people worked making the steel and all the parts to to another plant with a half mile long assembly line putting together the end product, an automobile.

The writing is engaging, witty and informative. Having a connection to the time and place probably earns this book an extra star but it is lively enough to for people interested in historical fiction or the auto industry.

Israel Zed (no kidding), the guy who hired Minor has some concerns about his new hire’s commitment to the car he is going to be in charge of selling.

”I think you should know I went out on a limb when I suggested you for this job.” His rich voice carried further when he lowered it. “Hank likes young men. You belong to Bennett’s generation. If this new miracle machine turns half as hard to sell to Americans as you were to Mr. Ford – well, the point is I couldn’t lose because I had faith in you. The world’s greatest sharper couldn’t sell hot biscuits to Eskimos if he doesn’t believe in them. I’m starting to think – correct me if I’m wrong – that you have doubts about this car.”

“I’m fifty-five years old, Mr. Zed. I have doubts about everything.” I wanted to leave it at that; I couldn’t. “You won’t be sorry you fought for me. I’ve already put most of my own time into this job, on top of all the company’s.”

“Time isn’t as important as attitude. You need to stop thinking of this as a job. Before the war, a car was just something you needed to get from here to there. All it took to sell one was to beat the other guy’s price. Now people are on the move, buying houses in what we used to call the country and shuttling to and from the city every day. Bob Briefcase drives twenty miles to work. Wife Betty drives ten miles to the supermarket and another twenty-five picking up and delivering Cub Scouts. That means two cars in the garage. When vacation time comes, Bo, Betty, and the Cub Scout throw everything into the trunk and a travel trailer and hit the open road. After two years of this they are sick of both cars and ready for something jazzier with fins and a dashboard loaded with dials and gauges. Money’s no problem; they can always swing another loan at the bank and pay it off on time. It’s our responsibility to have something worthy of their expectations waiting for them when they enter the showroom. It’s not so much a job as a sacred trust.”

Minor drinks with Reuther, the president of the UAW, Connie club soda, Walter scotch neat while they chat about mobsters they have known. This is Estleman so you know the mob has to be there somewhere. You won’t be disappointed with Edsel. Reuther hopes Minor can finger the man who tried to assassinate him and his brother Victor.

If Estleman can be said to be famous, and I am not sure that he can, he is known for his run-on lists of descriptors.

The [Olympia] arena smelled of Milk Duds, new and ancient sweat, cigarette smoke as old as the building, ammonia from the pipes that made the ice the Red Wings skated on during the season, stale urine, bad breathe, Old Spice, rotten apples, Evening in Paris, sardines, Juicy Fruit, coffee, blood, sweat socks, mildew, Vicks Vapo-rub, henna, horseshit, wet chickens, burning rags, skunk collars, scorched hair, dirty wool, mustard plasters, Polish sausages, robber galoshes, Crackerjacks, muscatel, Band-Aids, hydrogen peroxide, piccalilli, bunion pads, Brilliantine, boiled bedpans, moldy wood, and popcorn farts. When you broke that stench down to its elements you wondered how it managed to worm its way so deep into your bloodstream, bringing you back and back and making you wish you were there whenever someone opened a neglected hamper or a toilet backed up.”

There are several of these run-ons in each book, and, as an admirer of stream-of-consciousness, I look forward to each one.

I am a nostalgia guy, and Estleman fits in plenty with the help of Connie Minor whose hay-day was twenty-five years ago in spite of his best effort to be current. Maybe you have to be sixty-six and remember the Missing Link of the World Wrestling Federation to get the most out of this book. But if you only get half of it, there is still plenty to keep most people happy.

If the hunks of the book I have disgorged have not made you want to read this book, it is hopeless. But there are plenty of books out there so I am sure you will find some that appeal to you. But if you have a memory bank that includes Michigan and the fifties, I know you will like this one.

I’m going to give it five stars with a reminder that it qualifies for an extra star from me because … well, just because. I thought it was a funny book; I laughed out loud so many times I can’t remember how many times. Well, OK, three. Maybe you just have to be sixty-six and have grown up around Detroit.

You have stuck around long enough to earn my trust so I will tell you that this is really a book about how Connie Minor tries to find out who tried to kill the auto union powerhouse Walter Reuther. So it really is like a mystery. Estleman can fool you that way sometimes.

Oh, and there is a little bit of a love story, too.

[KOMET · Rating 4 out of 5]

Connie Minor, who last occupied a primary position in the Estleman Detroit Historical Crime Novel Series (i.e. "Whiskey River") as a popular journalist in the latter years of Prohibition Era Detroit, returns here as a journeyman in advertising, far removed from past glories. It is the 1950s and Detroit, like the nation, is prospering under the postwar bubble, which on the surface, seems to have risen all boats. Connie is offered an opportunity to hitch his lot to a star with a top advertising job in the Ford Motor Company. His job: to promote the new E-car with which Ford hopes to steal a march on GM and Chrysler and set it apart as the pre-eminent auto company in the world.

Working for Ford, however, brings some unexpected complications in Connie's life owing to various persons and entities who want Ford's E-car project to fail. He sets out to uncover who the responsible persons are, and in the process, finds himself rubbing elbows again with organized crime. Here's a novel that will grab your attention once you've passed the first page and hold you til its tumultuous denouement. You won't be disappointed.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago at a flea market, I found an old magazine advertisement for the Edsel. The tag line was "The EDSEL look is here to stay--it has the new ideas next year's cars are copying." Well, the look was not here to stay; the entire division vanished in a few years, and the name "Edsel" went on to be synonymous with failure in the car world. I often wondered not only what Ford was thinking, but what an ad agency could do when faced with such an impossible task as making an unattractive car interesting. Loren Estleman's historical crime novel works surprisingly well in illuminating both. While it takes a leap of the reader's faith to explain how former journalist Connie Minor winds up in the executive suite of Ford Motor Company with the task of introducing their newest division, the reader is well rewarded with a brilliant evocation of 1950's Detroit. The plot finds Minor meeting mobsters, labor leaders and prize fighters, all leading to complications that may undermine the Edsel introduction. As the reader knows, the Edsel is going to fail anyway, so the suspense here is in finding how Minor can get out alive to see the Edsel's introduction. The writing is sharp: "Talk of contacts had always softened him up. He was like a semi-literate flattered to be asked to lend his one book." Or: "I'd have bet my two weeks' vacation that when he was a few years younger he had flirted with a moustache to cover it up, then decided to live with it shorn after Tom Dewey's defeat." Recommended.

[Sabrina · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars rounded up. This novel was written in 1995 for the time period of the late 1950's and while written to the standards of the time it has not aged well considering the way of thinking and speaking in the book went out of fashion before the book was written and for good reason. The timeline was hard to pin down at times since the narrator talks about events happening at the moment in his life but constantly swaps it out by talking as if he is giving you his life story and everything going on is suddenly past tense, it was jarring, confusing and annoying given that it also meant he gave out dates willy nilly and you were constantly forgetting what the date was or time period was.

This was an ode to the style of the '50s (something the author didn't seem to like) and all the bad car designs of that era (while they might have been not good cars the author didn't seem to like them either in any way). The Edsel car was a real car made from 1958 to 1960 that didn't sell well and is considered a flop.

This reminded me of the very few James Bond novels I have read. I didn't like those and I didn't like this. The only redeeming quality about this is the misogynistic sexism of James Bond is not present here and the racism is very toned down and written as it was but you get the idea the author doesn't hold those ideas himself.

Connie Minor, a washed-out newspaper reporter who specialized in crime, specifically mob and bootlegger storys has been cooling his heels churning out ads to make a living. One day out of the blue he is approached by Israel Zedd, right-hand man of Henry Ford II. They want him to promote the E car or Edsel, the newest car by the company. While sitting around not doing much since the car won't come out for 3 years he gets kidnapped by a union boss who wants him to figure out who shot him and his brother 7 years ago. The PI he already hired who shadows his every move and takes his findings to report back is blackmailing him to keep doing his job... As Connie investigates everyone he runs into tells them everything for no reason, then ask him for a favor to get out of some kind of jam they are in which leads him to his next clue. The cycle repeats until it finally leads back to almost where he started. The solution is boring and anti-climatic and nothing of consequence happens and life goes on. No action, no suspense, no thrills, no real drama, no character development, no satisfying resolution (if you can even call the ending a resolution). Connie just goes about asking people a bunch of questions that you only get half-answers to until in the end the people he talked to end up taking care of their own problems or each others.

He's just an aging average guy who gets swept up by a company and bumbles into one mystery after another that cascades from trouble person to trouble person who all solve the previous person issues he just relays the messages or sets off another reaction the plugs up the previous mystery by putting someone/something new in the way.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fifth book in Estelman's Detroit Novels series. This series consists of stories of cars, crime and corruption in Detroit, MI, America's former Motor City. I enjoy them because I lived in Ann Arbor, MI, right outside Detroit, for much of my life. One of my uncles was a foreman at Ford Motor Company and my mother's entire family was from Michigan. We visited every summer of my childhood. All I was lacking was this inside look at the ways cars, crime and corruption made Detroit what it was and in many ways what it became.

Each book highlights a particular decade. Edsel is set in the 1950s and ace newspaper reporter Connie Minor, a main character in the first book, Whiskey River, returns. He is more than 20 years older and has been reduced to writing ad copy. He has also just been diagnosed with diabetes. On the first page, Minor is hit with news of his former nemesis, the biggest gangster in Detroit during Prohibition.

Connie Minor lands a job doing advertising and promotion for the upcoming release of the Edsel, one of the worst failures in Ford Motor's history. The story of Ford in those days, its president who is the grandson of Henry Ford, the connections with Walter Reuther who leads the United Auto Workers union, and the mysterious tie-ins with current crime bosses is eye opening. In Loren D Estelman's hands it is also highly entertaining.

As always, the writing is sharp, taut and colored with a noir tinge. It is his perceptive analysis of Detroit in those days compared to the rest of the country ringing with authenticity that always leaves me knowing more about that city with which I was so involved, almost more that I'm sure I want to know!

Do you live in or near a big city and find yourself drawn to novels set there? Hit me with some titles.

If you have ever had anything to do with Detroit, you must read Estleman. His books are sadly out of print in paper but easily found in libraries and as ebooks.

The books I have read previously in the series are:
Whiskey River: set in 1928-1929
Motown: set in 1966
King of the Corner: set in 1990

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personally, I'm on a quest to read almost everything by this author, so this book was next in line, same as the next one and next one after that, so here I am finishing this one and sharing my opinions...

I like this author, especially the clever wording in his writing style and the subtle humor he's serving on a plate from time to time, so each book is quite pleasant and entertaining, at least to me...

This one won't disappoint either, it's about the era when the motor Ford company launched in '57 a new car model and all the intrigue and plots surrounding this event... is not a masterpiece, but is fun nonetheless...

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an Amos Walker story, this is more novel less mystery, centered around the design and marketing of the Edsel, the witchhunt for Communists in the 1950s, and the town of Detroit.

Estleman doesn't know how to write badly. This is just a bit more talky than his Amos Walker novels, but well worth reading.

[Nefty123 · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a bit too much philosophising for my taste but the history lessons were great.I didn't realize the Edsel had lasted such a short time.

[Rome Doherty · Rating 3 out of 5]

In theatre, an actor can be said to be 'chewing the scenery when he or she overacts. This book chews the scenery, and the plots not great either.

[Joan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a very good mystery. Connie is a former newspaper reporter. He is a hard character to like. He has a job in PR. He is approached by the Ford Car Company to work in their PR department to sell the Edsel. He is told if he can promote the selling of enough Edsel, Henry Ford the II, will get him a newspaper job. The book portrays Henry Ford as a drunk who doesn't seem in touch with reality. Connie is threatened by Walter Reuther and several others. The book did not come together for me. It also did not bring Detroit or the Ford Company to life.

[John Machata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 50s style. Too flowery at times, but plausible plot. Fun view of Detroit post WWII explosion.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lots o patter, but nothing worth remembering, just like the car.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

1958 revisited! Great background, great Ford family and Teamsters fleshing-out.