What do you think?
Rate this book
Amos Walker #25
The Sundown Speech
A hot new Amos Walker mystery by a master of the hard-boiled detective novel. “Loren Estleman is my hero.”—Harlan Coben
Amos Walker is hired by Helen and Dante Gunner, a bohemian Ann Arbor couple, to find Jerry Marcus, a film director who has disappeared with their investment money. It’s one of Walker’s easiest jobs to date. In just a few short hours, Walker locates Marcus in his bedroom…murdered, his body shoved into a cupboard, a bullet through his head.
This case is opened and shut quickly, but Walker can’t quite let it go. When Dante is arrested for the murder Walker finds himself again in Helen’s employ, this time trying to prove that Dante didn’t do it.
When Walker interviews Holly Zacharias, a college student who was the last person to see Marcus alive, things get interesting. Because if Marcus is dead, and Dante is his killer, then who is driving by in the Crown Vic, shooting at Walker and Holly?
Jerry Marcus just might still be alive, and his plans may be worse than anything Walker can imagine.
Amos Walker is hired by Helen and Dante Gunner, a bohemian Ann Arbor couple, to find Jerry Marcus, a film director who has disappeared with their investment money. It’s one of Walker’s easiest jobs to date. In just a few short hours, Walker locates Marcus in his bedroom…murdered, his body shoved into a cupboard, a bullet through his head.
This case is opened and shut quickly, but Walker can’t quite let it go. When Dante is arrested for the murder Walker finds himself again in Helen’s employ, this time trying to prove that Dante didn’t do it.
When Walker interviews Holly Zacharias, a college student who was the last person to see Marcus alive, things get interesting. Because if Marcus is dead, and Dante is his killer, then who is driving by in the Crown Vic, shooting at Walker and Holly?
Jerry Marcus just might still be alive, and his plans may be worse than anything Walker can imagine.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published November 10, 2015
19 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
About the author
Loren D. Estleman
315 books280 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
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
April 22, 2020
This is an interesting entry in the Amos Walker series because instead of taking place in Detroit, which is Amos's usual stomping grounds, it plays out in Ann Arbor. It's a nice change of pace.
As the book opens, Amos is hired by the sort of aging hippy dippy couple that one finds in Ann Arbor, or Madison, Wisconsin, or Missoula, Montana. Heloise and Dante Gunnar, Volvo drivers and granola eaters, have invested $15,000 with a local filmmaker named Jerry Marcus, who is allegedly making a sci-fi movie. But they haven't seen or heard of anything of Marcus in a while and are afraid he has run off with their money. So they hire Walker to track him down.
Skilled detective that he is, it won't take Amos long to find Marcus. The only problem is that Marcus appears to be dead as a doornail, shot to death and crammed into a laundry cabinet in his cheap apartment. Having found Marcus, Walker has completed his mission. But then Dante Gunnar is arrested for the murder and Heloise wants Walker to get her husband out of the jam.
It won't be easy, and Walker will wind up entangled with the local cops who are a lot nicer and more cooperative than the ones he's used to working with in Detroit. Hour by hour and day by day, the case will become more complex and more dangerous, but Amos Walker has faced tougher villains and tougher cops before, and he won't rest until justice is done.
This is a case from Walker's early career, and Walker narrates it, looking back at the past. It's a fun read, and Amos is always good company. Twenty-five books in, this series shows few signs of age or rust.
As the book opens, Amos is hired by the sort of aging hippy dippy couple that one finds in Ann Arbor, or Madison, Wisconsin, or Missoula, Montana. Heloise and Dante Gunnar, Volvo drivers and granola eaters, have invested $15,000 with a local filmmaker named Jerry Marcus, who is allegedly making a sci-fi movie. But they haven't seen or heard of anything of Marcus in a while and are afraid he has run off with their money. So they hire Walker to track him down.
Skilled detective that he is, it won't take Amos long to find Marcus. The only problem is that Marcus appears to be dead as a doornail, shot to death and crammed into a laundry cabinet in his cheap apartment. Having found Marcus, Walker has completed his mission. But then Dante Gunnar is arrested for the murder and Heloise wants Walker to get her husband out of the jam.
It won't be easy, and Walker will wind up entangled with the local cops who are a lot nicer and more cooperative than the ones he's used to working with in Detroit. Hour by hour and day by day, the case will become more complex and more dangerous, but Amos Walker has faced tougher villains and tougher cops before, and he won't rest until justice is done.
This is a case from Walker's early career, and Walker narrates it, looking back at the past. It's a fun read, and Amos is always good company. Twenty-five books in, this series shows few signs of age or rust.
April 25, 2020
This book was just so much fun! Estleman is a master of dialogue! The murder and mayhem were, of course, well-plotted and the characters are great. Amos Walker is especially wonderful. But the writing--wow!
June 1, 2017
Amos Walker never lacks for a smart remark, even when he's under fire and waiting for a bomb to explode.
July 4, 2020
It was a pretty good book, but just did not feel like a five star book. There are several twist and turns in it, but about 2/3's the way through the book they quit and everything became obvious. Amos Walker, the main character in the book is a private eye. It starts out with him being hired by a couple of hippy-type kooks to try and find some one that they had give money as an investment in a movie he was making and who had disappeared.
May 8, 2025
a little more action than detecting in this one, also a good mocking of Ann Arbor.
December 29, 2015
OK entry to the series. Kind of a kick to read about Amos taking on "crunchy granola" clients - but honestly I think Amos just works better as a character when he's landlocked in Detroit. Also the mystery is a little thin this time out and the book is sort of written in this "looking back on an old case" style that didn't always gel for me. OK, but better books in the series.
November 19, 2015
Any new Amos Walker novel is a happy event and happens all too seldom. That being said, I wouldn't count this one as one of the classics. I would never miss one though as they are all thoroughly enjoyable.
September 4, 2018
Potboiler expansion of a ten year old Amos Walker novella set in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Except for bookend references to the present, the novel is a flashback which is a transparent contrivance to cover Walker's ignorance of a forensic science point that 2015 readers would be able to perceive at once. This guts whatever suspense the story holds as the reader is way ahead of the detective and reduces the book to a chase thriller. Walker wisecracks seem stagey and at times ludicrous in their context, making the character more of a jerk than the character readers of previous Walker novels are accustomed to. Satirizing insular self-made kitsch cultures is easy writing and this book lacks the social incisiveness displayed in earlier books.
May 8, 2017
This was my first Loren D. Estleman book and it will not be the last. I enjoyed the story very much, well written, free flowing and all the snappy dialog you find in the hard boiled stories from the 1940s and 50s. Most modern day detective books try way too hard to look like 1950s Mickey Spillane, this one actually nails it naturally, minus the superhuman Mike Hammer character, Amos Walker is just a plain ol' human detective who you can't help but like and sometimes feel sorry for. At 240 pages and a story that moves along briskly, you will finish this one quickly, and enjoy every minute of it. If you are a fan of the classic hard boiled you will love this book. I know I did.
July 1, 2019
This Amos Walker story is told about an older event, around ten to fifteen years ago. Its about a case involving a film maker, some old hippies, the Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor police, and a series of strange connected events and peoples.
The book is well written with a lot of laugh out loud moments, but didn't feel so much like an Amos Walker mystery as one where he's just around to tell the story. Walker was pretty incidental to the plot, as the book really is about police and their work. Its a great peek into the police and has a lot of great, memorable characters, but they had the case solved without Walker even being involved.
The book is well written with a lot of laugh out loud moments, but didn't feel so much like an Amos Walker mystery as one where he's just around to tell the story. Walker was pretty incidental to the plot, as the book really is about police and their work. Its a great peek into the police and has a lot of great, memorable characters, but they had the case solved without Walker even being involved.
June 2, 2023
An admitted fan of Estleman's Amos Walker series, I have yet to read one not found entertaining and, not infrequently, amusing. Noir ever lurks just below the surface in this and his other offering, and often breaches to good (and sometimes humorous effect, deliberate I suspect). Set in Detroit, those familiar with the city and its surrounds will additionally enjoy the references to the city both geographic and social.
July 10, 2017
Funny mystery.... the wisecracks about Ann Arbor could apply to other college towns (like Boulder)
May 22, 2023
DNF this book was all over the place… didn’t have a good flow
May 22, 2016
The Sundown Speech
Mysterious Book Report No. 243
by John Dwaine McKenna
Memorial Day weekend is the traditional start of the summer vacation season, so we’re kicking it off with a couple of short, fast reads that are perfect ‘beach books’; novels you can finish in one or two afternoons while working on your tan or just chillin’ in the shade . . .
The Sundown Speech, (Forge/Tom Doherty Associates, $24.99, 216 pages, ISBN 978-0-7653-3736-8) by Loren D. Estelman is the twenty-fifth installment in his Amos Walker series, and somewhere in the neighborhood of his seventy-fifth published work to date, so there’s plenty to choose from if you like ‘em hard-boiled, with short snappy dialogue from a tough, world-weary, chain-smoking private investigator who’s been there, done that and survived long enough to protagonize another novel.
In The Sundown Speech, Walker reminisces about an old 1990s case where he goes to Ann Arbor—home of the University of Michigan—because he’s been hired by a pair of aging hippies and university associates named Heloise and Dante Gunnar to find a man they’re afraid has fleeced them out of fifteen thousand dollars. They thought they were going to make a barrel of money investing in a science fiction movie entitled Mr. Alien Elect. That was nine months ago. Now they can’t find Jerry Marcus or his movie . . . much less their money . . . and in true egghead style they’re hollering for help from a tough guy. In one scene, where they’re interviewing Walker before hiring him, Heloise asks if he carries a firearm. He’s answers that he is licensed and armed. She tells him they’re big supporters of the anti-gun lobby and demands that Walker leave his gun locked up while working for them. Walker tells her to stuff it, in so many words, whereupon she and Dante recant the request . . . a sly, tongue-in-cheek aside by the author that principles are trumped by self-interest in some segments of society. It takes the ace detective less than a day to find Jerry Marcus. He was stuffed into a closet and shot in the head, dead as dead can be, and Walker’s case is closed. But then, Dante Gunnar is arrested for the murder. Walker’s rehired and the affair takes a couple of weird turns before it segues into a race with time to prevent a madman from killing hundreds, if not thousands of innocent persons and destroying a priceless artifact in the process, while Amos himself walks a highwire trying to stop the impending disaster. This one’s a gas that’s pure reading pleasure from the first page to the last word!
Mysterious Book Report No. 243
by John Dwaine McKenna
Memorial Day weekend is the traditional start of the summer vacation season, so we’re kicking it off with a couple of short, fast reads that are perfect ‘beach books’; novels you can finish in one or two afternoons while working on your tan or just chillin’ in the shade . . .
The Sundown Speech, (Forge/Tom Doherty Associates, $24.99, 216 pages, ISBN 978-0-7653-3736-8) by Loren D. Estelman is the twenty-fifth installment in his Amos Walker series, and somewhere in the neighborhood of his seventy-fifth published work to date, so there’s plenty to choose from if you like ‘em hard-boiled, with short snappy dialogue from a tough, world-weary, chain-smoking private investigator who’s been there, done that and survived long enough to protagonize another novel.
In The Sundown Speech, Walker reminisces about an old 1990s case where he goes to Ann Arbor—home of the University of Michigan—because he’s been hired by a pair of aging hippies and university associates named Heloise and Dante Gunnar to find a man they’re afraid has fleeced them out of fifteen thousand dollars. They thought they were going to make a barrel of money investing in a science fiction movie entitled Mr. Alien Elect. That was nine months ago. Now they can’t find Jerry Marcus or his movie . . . much less their money . . . and in true egghead style they’re hollering for help from a tough guy. In one scene, where they’re interviewing Walker before hiring him, Heloise asks if he carries a firearm. He’s answers that he is licensed and armed. She tells him they’re big supporters of the anti-gun lobby and demands that Walker leave his gun locked up while working for them. Walker tells her to stuff it, in so many words, whereupon she and Dante recant the request . . . a sly, tongue-in-cheek aside by the author that principles are trumped by self-interest in some segments of society. It takes the ace detective less than a day to find Jerry Marcus. He was stuffed into a closet and shot in the head, dead as dead can be, and Walker’s case is closed. But then, Dante Gunnar is arrested for the murder. Walker’s rehired and the affair takes a couple of weird turns before it segues into a race with time to prevent a madman from killing hundreds, if not thousands of innocent persons and destroying a priceless artifact in the process, while Amos himself walks a highwire trying to stop the impending disaster. This one’s a gas that’s pure reading pleasure from the first page to the last word!
January 27, 2016
Private investigator Amos Walker is hired by a bohemian couple to find the young filmmaker who absconded with the money they invested in his sci-fi film. He took the case and found Jerry Marcus within a few hours --- dead.
When I first picked up this book at the library, read the jacket, and saw the very long list of previous books, I thought I was in for an interesting read.
NOT! How this man has managed to publish so many books without self-publishing is beyond me. And I'm certainly not inclined to pick up any of his older books to find out why after reading this one.
It read like a 1940's pulp PI novel and was so riddled with comparative descriptions that I almost gave up after the fourth chapter. Had the extensive descriptions (though not as bad as Tolkien) been lessened or removed, there would only be a short story.
It is told in first person and it was disconcerting when you thought he was narrating current events, but then starts the next chapter with reference to the previous incident happening in the past. Confusing to say the least.
When I first picked up this book at the library, read the jacket, and saw the very long list of previous books, I thought I was in for an interesting read.
NOT! How this man has managed to publish so many books without self-publishing is beyond me. And I'm certainly not inclined to pick up any of his older books to find out why after reading this one.
It read like a 1940's pulp PI novel and was so riddled with comparative descriptions that I almost gave up after the fourth chapter. Had the extensive descriptions (though not as bad as Tolkien) been lessened or removed, there would only be a short story.
It is told in first person and it was disconcerting when you thought he was narrating current events, but then starts the next chapter with reference to the previous incident happening in the past. Confusing to say the least.
April 11, 2016
Even though this book 25 of a series, it is still a good stand alone book. It's also a very short book, 238 pages, so it can be read in one day. I started it yesterday morning and finished it by evening. Amos Walker is a private investigator. Helen and Dante hire Walker to find the guy who swindled them out of 15,000. But when Walker finds him, he's already dead. DNA proves it, but Walker sees this "dead" man walking around later. And so the mystery starts. How can "dead" guy be walking around town? DNA doesn't lie. This leads Walker on a mad dash all over town trying to find out what the heck is going on. The clues and characters are far and in between for Walker, but he keeps up with the help of a police SGT. that is working the case also. They bounce ideas off each other and they finally figure it out. You will never believe the ending! It surprised the heck out of me.
March 24, 2016
A quick and entertaining read.
I will say first off that Loren Estleman is one of my favorite authors. His writing style just flows. His descriptions are ...well - informative without being preachy. Dialogue is great.
Detroit private eye Amos Walker heads out I-94 to the home of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I've been to Ann Arbor many times when I used to live in Detroit-my friend was in a fraternity at UofM. But back the the book
The book is entitled 'The Sundown Speech' as in "you have until sundown to get out of town". That's what Walker is expecting from the local police. However...there's a couple murders, there's weirdos aplenty, fraud, scams, aging hippies - and it's all wrapped up together oh so nicely.
Loved it
I will say first off that Loren Estleman is one of my favorite authors. His writing style just flows. His descriptions are ...well - informative without being preachy. Dialogue is great.
Detroit private eye Amos Walker heads out I-94 to the home of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I've been to Ann Arbor many times when I used to live in Detroit-my friend was in a fraternity at UofM. But back the the book
The book is entitled 'The Sundown Speech' as in "you have until sundown to get out of town". That's what Walker is expecting from the local police. However...there's a couple murders, there's weirdos aplenty, fraud, scams, aging hippies - and it's all wrapped up together oh so nicely.
Loved it
January 4, 2016
Another in the Amos Walker series, this case takes the private investigator to Ann Arbor. Hired by Dante and Heloise Gunnar to track down Jerry Marcus, Amos quickly finds the con artist film maker-his body is stuffed in a cupboard. The case appears to be over, but when Dante is arrested for the murder, Amos is back on the case. With a few more shots fired, another body or two, and a case of mistaken identity, Amos proves to be the hero of the moment.
Filled with lots of clever use of words and with a typical of the era private eye - right down to the bottle in the file drawer- this will appeal to the reader who wants a traditional p I .
Filled with lots of clever use of words and with a typical of the era private eye - right down to the bottle in the file drawer- this will appeal to the reader who wants a traditional p I .
January 23, 2016
According to the author, this is a "greatly expanded re-imagination" of a novella he had written in 2004. Well done, as usual, for Mr. Estleman. All his "Amos Walker" books ooze of "hard-boiled" detective. Nothing comes easy for Walker, and this case is no exception. Hired by a couple, to find a con man who fleeced them, he finds the bad guy, apparently dead. Of course, it can't possibly be that simple, and the usual mystery, and danger, ensue.
June 9, 2016
Estleman's irreverent gumshoe Amos Walker is a great example of classic detective noir interspersed with a large helping of reality that keeps me coming back for more. Walker never gets the girl or enough business to do much more than survive which doesn't prevent him from maintaining his own slightly tarnished ethos and a cynicism that underlies the clever and sometimes hilarious dialogue.
A great series from a great writer.
A great series from a great writer.
December 31, 2015
Amos Walker, the hard-boiled, old school shamus returns for his 25th novel, and hasn't missed a beat as he unravels murder and mystery in Ann Arbor. Not quite the gritty streets of Detriot that he usually traverses, however, Amos proves once again that sleaze lurks wherever mankind treads.
February 28, 2016
A novella from the past expanded into a longer tale. Amos gets a case, solves it in a few hours and then the bodies start to arrive. He is working closely with the local police and is not in his usual trouble with the authorities. An easy and enjoyable read.
January 19, 2016
They don't make men like Amos Walker any more. I read these books for the character of AW rather than the plot so am seldom disappointed.
April 11, 2016
Pretty good book. Even better if you live near Ann Arbor. The details and settings are spot on and make you smile.
July 16, 2016
with all the nonstop figurative language, reads like a parody of a noir novel. no more from this author.
August 28, 2016
As good as always. Fun read, great characters, and awesome dialogue
January 4, 2016
Not his best. An expanded novella from 2004. Disjointed, Did not make a great deal of sense.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews