Thunder City

Detroit #7

by Loren D. Estleman

Thunder City presents Detroit in the process of becoming the Motor City. Harlan Crownover, scion of a great family of carriage makers, battles with his father to invest in a company run by Henry Ford, who has failed twice before in the automobile business. Desperate for funds, Harlan turns to Big .

Jim Dolan, the Midwest's most powerful political boss, and Sal Borneo, a visionary mafioso struggling to bring the commerce of vice into the new century. Allies at first, they soon will be mortal enemies. At the crisis, only Edith Hampton Crownover, Harlan's troubled, aristocratic mother, will be in a position to shift the balance of power.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Crime

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

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 4 out of 5]

This is the final book of the seven book Detroit Crime Mystery series. Each book is in a different decade in the 20th century. Oddly enough, although this was the final book of the series, it actually covers the first decade. I understand that Estleman initially intended for this to be a three book series but I guess he got carried away. The only character common to all seven books is the City of Detroit. There are some individuals and families who appear in more than one book.

Estleman has written quite a few other books and may be best known for his Amos Walker Mystery series with 22 books. I have not read any of those books yet. In fact, although I grew up and lived the first thirty years of my life in southeastern Michigan, I was not familiar with this author until I discovered this series through my participation in GoodReads. Being familiar with the Detroit area is definitely a plus when reading this series but I think there is enough meat to interest any reader who likes historical fiction with a bit of a crime focus. I am very pleased to have made the discovery and will try some of the Amos Walker books in the future.

Thanks to the decision of the Muehl Public Library in Seymour, Wisconsin to withdraw Thunder City from its collection, I have a fine recycled copy online from Silver Arch Books in Missouri. The book has only 31 ratings and 2 reviews on GR, possibly owing to the fact that it has generated only limited interest due to its geographical focus on Detroit. The series definitely attracted me because of that focus. I do think that the books in this series have an interest beyond those only interested in Detroit. For example, Thunder City deals with the start up of the automotive industry, one of the factors that made Detroit a boom town for the first half of the 20th century. As historical fiction, it captures life at a moment in time when the foundation of a major city was being constructed.

Two significant industries in Detroit at the turn of the century were stove making and carriage making. Crownover Coaches and Michigan Stove Company made families rich. Harlan Crownover, the second son, wanted to invest money with Henry Ford who had an idea for an automobile. His father declined to give him money to invest and, in fact, docked his son’s pay for the hour he had spent pursuing another gentleman to participate in the investment. In the end he is a partner with Henry Ford with an investment of $5000 borrowed from and up and coming mobster.

Detroit had a host of ethnic populations who each had their own part in the city.

Drawn along ethnic lines, a map of Detroit in the small years of the twentieth century would have resembled a butcher’s chart, one of those largely unnecessary wall decorations presuming to divide an overstuffed cow into chops, steaks, ribs and sweetbreads, each section tinted it own color and promising a set of pleasures and disadvantages unique to itself.

The Polish had their enclave of Hamtramck. Corktown was the home of the Irish. East of central belonged to the Germans. Greektown had its own place.

It was said that while the Poles worked and the Germans learned and the Irish stole, the Greeks ate.

The Negroes had their own bounded area “as self-contained as Hamtramck, without the paperwork.” The Italians segregated into blocks that represented the various distinct areas of Italy: Sicily, Abruzzi, Naples, Firenze, Calabria, and Venice. Salvatore Bornea of little Sicily was known as Sal Borneo. He was the one who lent Harlan the $5000 with the expectation that the venture would fail and Harlan would be in his debt. Uncle Joe Sorrato was listed as a greengrocer but “had not operated a fruit-and-vegetable cart in fifteen years, but no Italian merchant in the city could sell produce without his permission.” There are definitely some interesting characters including Henry Ford before he invented the assembly line and became a tycoon!

You will read as Henry moves from the Model A to the Model T. There will be familiar names from car history. You will experience the beginnings of the Italian mafia. You will read the leaflets of the Women’s Christian temperance Union foreshadowing prohibition, the fertile ground for the mobsters. And you will see Henry Ford imagine making all the parts for his cars and being self sufficient and measuring out the soggy swampland off the Rouge River as a steel foundry. All this time Ford is being sued for patent infringement for making an automobile that was allegedly invented by someone else. As they say, the rest is history.

The Afterword of the author is interesting and indicates the chronological order of the seven books:
Thunder City (1900-10)
Whiskey River (1928-1939)
Jitterbug (1943)
Edsel (1951-59)
Motown (1966)
Stress (1973)
King of the Corner (1990)

I thought that this book, Thunder City, was the least interesting of the series. For most of the book I was thinking “three stars” but it got considerably better toward the end. I will give it four stars out of my fondness for the series. Blame the extra star here on my genesis from that region.

My favorite of the seven books is Edsel. Maybe that was because it seemed to have the most Michigan references. If I had started with Thunder City, I am not sure I would have continued on to the rest of the series. I did read the last four books in the series in about a week, two days for each book. It is a rarity for me to read a series in such rapid succession. Now what am I going to read?

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thunder City has as its focus the City of Detroit as it was in the decade before the First World War. It’s rich with a variety of interesting, well fleshed-out characters (e.g. a powerful Irish-American political boss, an early mafioso [Sal Borneo], the Dodge brothers, Henry Ford, and a son of one of the richest men in Detroit who sees the dawning auto industry as the future), who embody the spirit of a growing, dynamic Midwestern city in flux between the norms of 19th century life coupled with ethnic tensions, and the budding, progressive/industrial changes being ushered in by the new century.

As someone who was born and grew up in Detroit, this novel is TREMENDOUS, REVELATORY, and FANTASTIC!!! It helps to give me (as a transplanted Detroiter) a better perspective --- given the present state Detroit is in --- about the historic forces which have shaped the city over time. I LOVE THIS NOVEL. Thank you, Mr. Estleman.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very interesting, historically based account of the beginnings of the auto industry in Detroit and the parallel genesis of the Italian Mafia in that city. Although many of the characters are fictional, Henry Ford, the Dodge brothers and other real life personages are included as are the cultural, legal and economic struggles that accompanied the growth of the automobile industry.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the seventh and final entry in this author's Detroit series. In each of the books Estleman takes a pivotal point in the city's history and combines historical facts and personalities with great storytelling. The series' main character is the city itself with a supporting cast of politics, organized crime and industry - and this being the story of Detroit that means the auto industry. Thunder City chronicles the car industry's birth at the turn of the last century with Henry Ford as the central figure - although he's not the central character of this book - his successes, failures, friends and enemies as he revolutionizes not only the city of Detroit but the country with his vision of a car for every household.

What drives this book is the supporting fictional cast - a rotund, corrupt city official fighting change as he sees the power equation changing and not in his favor; a Detroit family's internal struggle as their business in horse drawn carriages is threatened by Ford's horseless one; and an up and coming Italian crime boss playing both sides of the struggle - Each vying to be King of the Detroit Hill. Their scheming, planning and double-crossing even when we know who wins is still fascinating.

This is an excellent book and an excellent series.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this is listed as book 7 of the Detroit series, it is the first historically speaking. This is the beginning of Detroit as a major city, the birth of the American auto industry. Staged against this is the growth of the mafia in Detroit, and the decline of two other major powers. Huge individuals such as Henry Ford are brought to life, as well as fictional ones representing real forces at the time, such as a mob boss, a Roman Catholic bishop and powerbroker, and others.

This covers a largely unknown event from the early automotive days, when Henry Ford was on his third attempt after two bankrupt companies behind him. But there are forces at work who have their own agenda, and automobiles do not fit in.

[Cindy B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interestingly interwoven pre-WWII-era history is accurate depiction of ethnic relations, Henry Ford's eccentricity, and political procedures. Audio done by Dan Butler, expertly adds a sense of the times. Casting includes 4 families (the Irish Pope's, a carriage-makers, a mafia type, & Henry Ford). Sex, gore, and language are nonexistent, this is the end of the Victorian era.

Recommended for mystery and history buffs.

Like visiting my grandparents time's. text ©2001 audio ©2000?

[Charles Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Subtitled "A Novel of Detroit" this novel starts slow but ends with an interesting twist. We follow the rise of an industry (in particular Henry Ford) back dropped against a changing country and the so-called captains of industry against such change. Estleman over-details but once the story turns upstream, about halfway, despite his tendency to talk too much, the various histories that make up the story take over. I like that approach.

Thunder City is a prelude to his Whiskey River, also about Detroit. Whiskey River is more the Untouchables Visit Detroit. Thunder City is more of history lesson of life in a metropolitan city before WWI.
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[Gbug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another installment in Loren Estleman's Detroit series. An entertaining read about the beginnings of the automobile industry. This is a fictional account of history. Some facts. What is great about this series is it can be read in any order. Which is good for us who get most of our books at the library.

[John Marr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps the weakest of Estleman's Detroit saga, as what little action there is frequently grinds to a halt for pages & pages of description, setting, and context (perhaps a stylistic nod to novels of the period?). Luckily, it's interesting enough to keep things moving. But still, it could have been better.

[Terry Simpkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much more compact than Whiskey River, which, while good, seemed to devolve into an endless series of mob hits and police brutality. This installment tells the story of Henry Ford’s effort to get the nascent motorcar industry off the ground. Interesting and compelling.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read the series in chronological order so started with the last one written. Having lived in the Detroit area for a while many years ago, it was fun seeing familiar street names. The city itself has changed hugely in the past 100 years, though. I liked the story arc of this book and the mix of actual historical characters. The writing style was very easy to read also.

[Terje Fokstuen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detroit at the dawn of the 20th Century. A young Henry Ford, with the help of the Dodge Brothers, is racing to build the Model T Ford which will transform America.

A corrupt Irish politician, and a Sicilian gangster scheme to stay atop the whirling ethnic and generational morass that was pre WW1 Detroit. A second son to a wagon making millionaire must decide whether to stay his fathers loyal son or to fight to take the family business in a new direction.

All these stories, and one or two others, are melded together into a snapshot of Detroit at the beginning of the automobile age. It reads quickly and gives a good snap shot of a city that helped define 20th Century America.

Though the last to be written it is the first, chronologically, in a series of 7 novels about Detroit.

[will · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting fictionalized account of Detroit's transition into the 20th century and the beginnings of the automotive industry. Estleman moves the plot along, making this a fairly quick read, but his descriptions (of characters, locations, etc.) are not particularly evocative and tend to be repetitive. He also displays a bizarre obsession with the strength of each character's handshake (hint: each one is stronger than the one before).

The fact that Estleman used his afterword to out himself as a global warming denier and make unsupported accusations of corruption against Coleman Young (Detroit's first black mayor) doesn't improve my opinion of him.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight historical fiction from Estleman, recounting the founding of Ford Motor Company, with a little action stirred in. Untypically for him, more description and character development, less dialogue and action, and it works well.

Fiction and humor go hand in hand with historical tidbits such as the monochromatic Model T being available only in black because the black paint dried faster and enabled Ford to roll them off the assembly line quicker.

Just when you think he can't do better, he does. Estleman is my favorite contemporary fiction author.

[Tracy · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a big fan of all of Mr. Estleman's work up to this point, I found myself very disappointed in this effort. Character development doesn't live up to the authors previous works and quite frankly I really didn't care for any one person in the book.

[Mercurialgem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this a long time. It is one of those books that I can't recall what it was about but do remember that I enjoyed reading it. I am rating it a 5. If I ever reread it and my opinion changes I will change the rating but for now 5.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

mystery