The Lioness Is the Hunter: An Amos Walker Mystery

The odds of three clients showing up at Amos Walker’s bare-bones office on the very same hot summer day are slim, but that’s what happens in Edgar-finalist Estleman’s highly entertaining 26th mystery featuring the Detroit-based private eye (after 2015’s The Sundown Speech). The first client wants Emil Haas, a prominent businessman and property developer, found; the second definitely wants Hass to remain out of circulation; and the third to arrive, Haas’s grown daughter, Gwendolyn, also wants to know what has happened to dear old dad. Before the sun has set, Walker has stumbled on the body of one of his clients and stirred up the interest of the Detroit police, Homeland Security, and a band of international fanatics. But it’s all in a day’s work for Walker, whose lively first-person narrative is studded with wry observations and refreshingly imaginative turns of phrase. Only the arch villainess, Madame Sing (whose criminal activities include terrorism, murder, drugs, and extortion), strikes a wrong note. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (Feb.)