Amos Walker's Detroit
Text by Loren D. Estleman
Photographs by Monte Nagler
Hardback
ISBN: 9780814333570
Pages: 104 Size: 9x9
Illustrations: 45
eBOOK
ISBN: 9780814335512
Review
Loren's words and Monte's photos combine powerfully. They reveal a city that occasionally breaks your heart but frequently captures it.
— Roger Weber
Amos Walker’s Detroit visits dozens of unforgettable locations from Loren D. Estleman’s Amos Walker series. As Estleman says of Detroit in the preface: "It’s a hard-boiled town, and the crumbling buildings and rusting railroad tracks of the warehouse district, the palaces across the limits in Grosse Pointe, and the black-hole shadows of the Cass Corridor were made to order for a remaindered knight chasing truth through a maze of threats, deceptions, and inconvenient corpses. City and protagonist are cut from the same coarse cloth. They are the series’ two heroes."
Amos Walker’s Detroit allows Estleman’s settings to take center stage as noted photographer Monte Nagler turns his lens to Estleman’s various noir locations. Some locations are well-known landmarks, like the Renaissance Center, the Wayne County Building, Belle Isle, and Mexicantown, and some are fictional locales such as Walker’s home and office. Even when the locations are familiar, Nagler’s lens renders them in fresh and unexpected ways. Excerpts from Estleman’s novels describing the locations accompany each image and Estleman’s thoughtful introduction contextualizes the images and comments on the role of Detroit as a noir backdrop.
The photographs in Amos Walker’s Detroit show the city in a new light, demonstrating that Detroit’s grit and glamour coexist in unexpected places and make a perfect setting for a mystery. Fans of the Amos Walker series, as well as those interested in photography, architecture, and local culture will appreciate this handsome volume.
Amos Walker's view of Detroit, cleverly crafted through the words of Loren Estleman, is unlike any other: candidly earthy, with all the crustiness of a freshly-baked loaf of French bread. Monte Nagler's photos top if off like fine wine, creating a perfect pairing of extraordinary realism."
– Colleen Burcar, Detroit radio and television personality and author of Michigan Curiosities and You Know You’re in Michigan When . . .
Amos Walker's Detroit is an unalloyed delight, even if Detroit isn't your favorite town. If you're not already an Estleman fan (and everyone in the country should be), this book is a wonderful way to get to know him. Open any page at random and you'll get pith, wit, taste, wisdom, or a chuckle, and probably all of the above. And the best news is that Estleman already has a brilliant series of Amos Walker books out there, every one of them a gem."
– John Lescroart, New York Times best-selling author of The Suspect, The Hunt Club, and the Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series
Loren's words and Monte's photos combine powerfully. They reveal a city that occasionally breaks your heart but frequently captures it."
– Roger Weber, reporter at WDIV-TV, Detroit
Those who know Detroit will shake their heads in amazement at the photos and copy, thinking he's dead-on accurate. Those who don't know Detroit will shake their heads in amazement and the photos and copy, believing he's dead-on accurate. With Nagler, both men make their case – and win it – that Detroit is the ideal noir backdrop for Amos Walker."
– Kalamazoo Gazette