Smoke on the Water: An Amos Walker Novel

Wisecracking Detroit PI Amos Walker returns (after City Walls) in this superb hard-boiled mystery from Shamus winner Estleman. After attorney Spencer Bennett is killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a busy street, a wily representative for Bennett’s firm hires Walker to look into the incident. At the time of his death, Bennett was carrying sensitive legal files that have since gone missing; his employers are eager to retrieve one in particular, which contains documents from a wrongful termination suit. Walker locates an eyewitness who’s able to identify the vehicle and learns it was owned by Bennett and stolen by whoever ran him down. The fuzzy fate of the hit-and-run driver only adds to the mystery, and the more Walker digs, the foggier the case gets, with the details eventually becoming as murky as the smoke emanating from nearby Canadian wildfires. Estleman heightens the stakes with a steadily rising body count, and maneuvers his gumshoe into a satisfying, suspenseful showdown against a worthy adversary. The razor-sharp prose (“For weeks the air smelled like a wet dog dipped in lip wax”) is a bonus. This is a top-shelf crime story. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (Feb.)