Books by Loren D. Estleman

Dead Man's Hand No one paid any mind to Jack McCall as he unloaded a .44 caliber slug into Wild Bill Hickok's brain at point-blank range. Deadwood's legendary gunslinging marshal was dead, holding a poker hand of aces and eights, a dead man's hand. The question the law wanted to know: was McCall a hired killer or did he kill Hickok to avenge his brother's death? Find out in Loren D. Estleman's Aces & Eights. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

At the turn of the twentieth century, undertaker Richard Connable is called upon to disguise the suicide of a famous financier in order to avert panic in the American markets, while his wife, Lucy, sensing the approach of her own death, recounts their life story.

DIVIn the tense summer before Detroit’s 1967 race riots, a former cop faces off against some of the city’s most dangerous forces/div DIVRage simmers beneath the tranquil surface of 1960s Detroit. As the auto industry enjoys its last moments of prosperity, widespread discrimination infuriates the city’s black middle class. One of the most destructive riots of the twentieth century is around the corner, and Rick Amery is going to be right in the middle./divDIV /divDIVA longtime cop forced out of the department on trumped-up graft charges, Amery shares Detroit’s obsession with muscle cars. It was the temptation of a white ’64 Thunderbird that cost him his badge, and it is for the sake of General Motors that he takes his first job as a private investigator, digging up dirt on a consumer advocate who calls GM cars death traps. Amery must work quickly, for no hot rod on Earth is fast enough to outrun the trouble that’s gaining on the Motor City./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Loren D. Estleman including rare photos from the author’s personal collection./div

DIVFresh out of jail, an ex-ballplayer stumbles into the world of bounty hunting and murder in urban Detroit/div DIVEven prison couldn’t stop former big-league pitcher Doc Miller from playing baseball. Jailed after a teenage girl overdosed on cocaine at one of his house parties, the former Detroit Tigers ace became a star at the Michigan State Prison, bringing home the institution’s first Midwestern Penal System championship. Now out on parole, his days of ballpark heroics are over for good./divDIV /divDIVMiller’s brother gets him a job selling tractor parts for John Deere, work Doc finds even duller than life in the joint. While moonlighting as a cab driver, he meets a bail bondsman who offers work as a bounty hunter. On their first job together, they find their target savagely murdered. His name was Ambrose X. Dryce, formerly Wilson McCoy, a Black Panther turned drug lord. Sucked back into the criminal underworld, Doc will need to make his best plays to stay alive without violating his parole./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Loren D. Estleman including rare photos from the author’s personal collection./div

A priest's death leads a Detroit gumshoe into a case of church corruption in this mordantly funny hard-boiled crime novel Ralph Poteet is forty pounds overweight, out of gin, and he hasn't seen his gun in weeks. As far as private detectives go, he's not much to look at. But he's the only one in the building, and that's enough for Lyla Dane. A call girl who's far better at her job than Ralph is at his, she calls him in the middle of the night because she has a dead monsignor in her bed. After dealing with Lyla's deceased client, Ralph tries his hand at blackmail, offering to keep mum about the priest's embarrassing demise in exchange for a payoff from the diocese. But when somebody tries to kill Ralph and Lyla, Detroit's most unsavory PI is swept into an unholy swarm of deadly secrets that resonates all the way to Washington, DC, and the Vatican. Three-time Shamus Award–winning author Loren D. Estleman delivers a witty, ribald send-up of the hard-boiled detective genre in this action-packed crime novel.

Alone, the second wacky comedic murder romp for Hollywood film detective Valentino, from award-winning author Loren D. Estleman Valentino wants to keep The Oracle, his beloved run-down movie palace, from being condemned before it even reopens, but murder keeps intruding into his otherwise quiet life. At a gala party held in memory of screen legend Greta Garbo, he's having fun until the host, a hotshot developer named Matthew Rankin, tells Valentino about a certain letter from Garbo to his late wife. She and Garbo had been...close. Such a letter is of great interest to a film archivist like Valentino, but the the plot thickens when Rankin tells Val that his assistant, Akers, is using this letter to blackmail him. Val is appalled by the thought of blackmail...but that letter sounds juicier all the time. Returning to Rankin's mansion after the party, Val finds Rankin sitting at his desk with a pistol in his hand, looking at Akers's dead body on the floor. Valentino's in a quandary. He'd love to see that letter, but he can't. He's gotten his girlfriend—who works for the police—in trouble, so his love life is, pardon the expression, shot to hell. Worse yet, the building inspector has kicked him out of his unfinished living space in the Oracle, so he takes his life in his hands and moves in with his eccentric mentor, the elderly, insomniac Professor Broadhead. No love, no sleep, no letter—life isn't fair! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Indigo is a brand new Valentino novel from Harlan Coben's hero, Loren D. Estleman! Film detective Valentino is summoned to the estate of Ignacio Bozel to collect a prized donation to the university’s movie library: Bleak Street, a film from the classic noir period, thought lost for more than sixty years. Bleak Street was never released. Its star, Van Oliver, a gifted and charismatic actor with alleged ties to the mob, disappeared while the project was in post-production, presumably murdered by gangland rivals: another one of Hollywood’s unsolved mysteries. Studio bosses elected to shelve the film rather than risk box-office failure. UCLA’s PR Department is excited about the acquisition, but only if Valentino can find a way to sell it in the mainstream media by way of a sensational discovery to coincide with its release: “We want to know what happened to Oliver.” A simple quest for a few hundred yards of celluloid opens a portal into a place darker than night. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A photographic tour of famous and infamous Detroit-area locations from Loren D. Estleman's popular Amos Walker series of detective novels. 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.

The fifth hardboiled novel featuring ex-hitman Peter Macklin, stuck between his mother-in-law and a hard case in Ohio

Professional killer Peter Macklin has been retired for more than two years and is honeymooning with his dream woman, 21-year-old Laurie. But the past has a way of catching up with people, and Macklin has a lot of past.

Edgar Award Finalist: In the throes of Prohibition-era Detroit, one reporter follows the gripping and violent life of a man who helped keep the booze flowing. Like nowhere else in America, Detroit flourished during Prohibition. The constant flow of liquor from across the Canadian border made Lake Erie a war zone, and lined the pockets of the men who ran the Purple Gang, the Unione Siciliana, and the Little Jewish Navy. As the mob bosses got rich, they mingled with the upper crust like never before. But Prohibition was more than just a boon for gangsters. For newspapermen, it was a dream come true. It’s 1928, and the Detroit Times’ Connie Minor knows every thug, moll, and triggerman south of Eight Mile. He’s drinking rotgut whiskey in a speakeasy on Vernor when he meets Jack Dance for the first time, and watches as the preening young hothead joins Joey Machine’s mob. Over the next few years, the two mobsters will fight a battle for the soul of Detroit’s underground, and Connie Minor will be there to cover every shot. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Loren D. Estleman including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

Enter Valentino, a mild-mannered UCLA film archivist. In the surreal world of Hollywood filmdom, truth is often stranger than celluloid fiction. When Valentino buys a decrepit movie palace and uncovers a skeleton in the secret Prohibition basement, he's not really surprised. But he's staggered by a second discovery: long-lost, priceless reels of film: Erich von Stroheim's infamous Greed. The LAPD wants to take the reels as evidence, jeopardizing the precious old film. If Valentino wants to save his find, he has only one choice: solve the murder within 72 hours with the help of his mentor, the noted film scholar Broadhead, and Fanta, a feisty if slightly flaky young law student. Between a budding romance with a beautiful forensics investigator and visions of Von Stroheim's ghost, Valentino's madcap race to save the flick is as fast and frenetic as a classic screwball comedy. A quirky cast of characters, smart dialogue and a touch of romance make Frames Estleman's most engaging and accessible novel to date. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

DIVHired to promote the new American dream car, a former reporter finds himself mired in a deadly conspiracy against a union boss and Ford Motors itself/div DIVIt’s only been two decades since Connie Minor was on top, but it feels like centuries. Once a journalist, Minor spent Prohibition with his finger on gangland’s pulse, a confidant of every rumrunner, boss, and triggerman in Detroit. But as the gangsters fell, Minor went with them, replaced by a generation of reporters more interested in the Nazi Party than the inner workings of the Purple Gang./divDIV /divDIVNow it’s the 1950s, and after years writing mindless ad copy, Minor fears that his brain may be permanently atrophied—that is, until an exciting new job drops on his desk. Minor is hired to sell Ford’s most original creation, the Edsel, meant to take America by storm. But the job quickly reintroduces him to some ugly old Detroit faces. When he uncovers a conspiracy against both a union leader and the new car, his reporter’s instincts kick in. It’s been years since Minor gabbed with mobsters, but it’s never too late for an old newspaperman to get whacked./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Loren D. Estleman including rare photos from the author’s personal collection./div

Bestselling author Loren D. Estleman has honed his craft throughout a career that has spanned more than 50 novels and won him a Pulitzer Prize nomination, and now readers can benefit from his expertise with Writing the Popular Novel. With engaging, uplifting advice, this book gives aspiring authors a guide to making their dreams come true and features:* An overview of literary genres and how to decide which one is best suited for the reader* Tips on how to conduct research(and how to make the leap from research to writing)* An in-depth look at dialogue, point of view, and other techniquesAs compelling as it is insightful, this book is sure to be popular with readers!

Kriminalroman om privatdetektiven Amos Walker

Monkey in the Middle: A hard-boiled mystery from the master of the genre From Loren D. Estleman, the recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, comes his next enthralling Amos Walker mystery, Monkey in the Middle. Private eye Amos Walker doesn't have the luxury of hearing no evil. When a young, would-be investigative journalist comes to him for protection, Walker finds himself embroiled in a web of secrets and lies. The journalist is suspiciously vague about why he needs help and from whom, and he's not the only one keeping Walker in the dark. A retired bestselling author, a fugitive whistleblower, a headline-hungry defense attorney, and a career assassin with a history with Walker all seem to be hiding something. Not to mention the covert government agencies pursuing their own mysterious agendas. As Walker seeks answers, he discovers a dead body—and enough trouble to put him on ice for good. To unravel the mystery and protect his client, the Detroit PI must navigate a shadowy world where no one is telling the whole truth. Filled with Estleman's signature hard-boiled prose and gritty noir atmosphere, Monkey in the Middle is a gripping tale of murder, secrets, and the search for justice on the streets of the Motor City. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

During the Great Depression, a ruthless killer breaks out of prison to reclaim his status as Public Enemy Number One in this chilling, action-packed novel Before Dillinger, before Bonnie and Clyde, there was Virgil Ballard, the most ruthless killer the United States has ever seen. Ballard gets his start in the early 1920s, hijacking liquor trucks and selling the bootlegged hooch. He has a youthful face and the eyes of a killer, and it isn't long before he baptizes himself in another man's blood. The state gives him a life sentence, but no jail can hold Ballard. When he busts out of prison, he knows he has a date with death—but how many coppers can he take out along the way? Inspired by the author's love of 1930s gangster movies, Loren D. Estleman's debut thriller surges with the narrative energy and crackling dialogue that would become hallmarks of his numerous acclaimed and award-winning hard-boiled crime novels.

Presents an epic account of the brutal and legendary O.K. Corral shootout between Ike Clanton's cowboys and the Earp brothers.

Hangman Oscar Stone is a master executioner, who prides himself on his careful and exacting work, until a sudden moment of realization and devastating truth forces him to come to terms with himself and his profession.

Detroit PI Amos Walker steps into a lethal family feud when the beautiful widow of a powerful industrialist hires him to find her late husband's illegitimate children Leland Stutch was building automobiles before Henry Ford ever dreamed up the Model T. He dominated Detroit for most of the 20th century as the auto industry soared and then began its long, slow descent. When Stutch's widow contacts Amos Walker, the private eye expects to meet a doddering old lady. Instead he encounters Rayellen, a 30-something beauty with washboard abs and 1 of the most unusual propositions he's ever heard. Unconcerned with matrimonial vows, the most powerful man in Detroit left mistresses—and love children—all over Michigan. To stave off any future paternity suits, Rayellen hires Walker to locate Stutch's illegitimate offspring and pay them off—a seemingly simple task that draws the detective into a dysfunctional family's war zone and a violent case of kidnapping and murder. Sinister Heights is the 15th book in the Amos Walker Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Locked in a deadly feud, cowboys Randy Locke and Frank Farmer have spent decades attempting to annihilate each other any time they are within shooting distance. So far, the men are even. One of Frank's bullets has given Randy a permanent limp. Vain Frank wears a prosthetic ear, his own lost to Randy's assault. If either of them remembers the original reason for the feud, it seems moot now. Their quest for revenge has led them on a merry chase through the Old West—through soon-to-be ghost towns and major cities; cattle ranches and mountain cabins; brothels and fishing boats; jailhouses and movie sets. Even their marriages have fallen victim to the feud. The story of their long-term hatred well known throughout the country, Frank and Randy are approached (separately, of course) by Abraham Cripplehorn with a proposition. With the popular Buffalo Bill's Wild West show a raging success, why not publicize their next duel and sell tickets to the event? Winner take all, in more ways than one. Frank and Randy make a date for death...but will they be able to wait for the show? And could it be that their decades-long thirst for revenge is the only thing they are living for? Loren D. Estleman's The Long High Noon takes the reader on a thrilling adventure, touring the Old West from the days of the trains and cattle to roads and film sets.

For freed slave Honey Boutrille, "justice" is a word that no longer bears any weight. After he saves the life of a prostitute by shooting her white, would-be killer, the price on Honey's head sends him on the run. As he narrowly escapes scrape after scrape, he learns to keep one eye in front of him and one eye on his back. In California, "Twice" Emmerson begins a crime spree. His inflated pride and deadly temper make him a threat to anyone who crosses him. With greed as his driving force, he uses whatever means necessary to separate money from those who have it. As word of Boutrille and Emmerson spreads, and the number of bodies they leave behind increases, two men set out to find them. One, a hopeful writer, finds that the "Black Snake" may be more than he seems; the other, a showman, plans to promote Emmerson as a fresh, new Buffalo Bill. Through blood and treachery, love and hate, these four men discover the defining line between truth and fiction. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"A new Amos Walker mystery from award-winning author Loren D. Estleman! Amos Walker is hired by one Francis X. Lawes, a private-sector mover and shaker in Detroit politics, to prove that his wife, Paula, who disappeared under sinister circumstances shortly more than six years ago, is dead, so he can remarry without having to wait for the seven-year-declaration-of-death rule to kick in. Walker's investigation is complicated by two facts: the police still consider Lawes the prime suspect, and the first-responding officer in that old case was killed in the line of duty shortly afterwards and his notebook has never been found. The question for Walker is, if Lawes is guilty, why would he put himself in jeopardy of arrest and prosecution by giving the forensics team a body to work on? ("--

The place: Detroit. The time: World War II. While most of the police department is fighting overseas, the four men of the Racket Squad struggle to keep a lid on a powderkeg stuffed with draft-dodging troublemakers, Black Market gangsters, enemy saboteurs, and a mixed bag of racial and ethnic groups working uneasily side by side in defense plants run by the automobile industry. With blackjacks, brass knuckles, tommy guns, and their bare fists, Lieutenant Max Zagreb, Sergeant Starvo Canal, and detectives McReary and Burke--known collectively as the "Four Horsemen"--battle their way through ten gritty stories in the hardest-boiled town during the twentieth century's hardest-boiled decade.

Special U.S. Deputy Page Murdock rides into Breen, Montana, on the trail of a menacing and elusive outlaw. But before he can scout the saloons for his man, he is made town marshal in a territory heating up for the ugliest range war this side of hell. The big ranchers want a gunslinger marshal, and the small ranchers have their own hired gun. But the badge on Murdock's chest means law, and he'll enforce it the best way he knows...with a gun.

Private investigator Amos Walker finds himself caught between the mafia and the porn industry when he is hired by a businessman, whose wife has disappeared leaving only a note saying "don't look for me".

City Walls, the next Amos Walker novel from a Grand Master. “Loren D. Estleman is my hero.”—Harlan Coben The search for a fugitive embezzler leads Amos Walker to Cleveland, where he is hired by Emmett Yale, a leading figure in the electric car industry, to investigate the murder of his stepson. Yale believes that his stepson's hitman is connected to Clare Strickling, a former employee, and his attempts to silence whispers that he has bought illegal insider-trading information. Walker shadows Strickling to a private airfield as he attempts to flee the country--only to then witness his murder. The twisted web of lies and deceit surrounding both deaths forces Walker to question the motivations of everyone he encounters, from Major Jack Flagg, an elderly barnstormer, Palm Volker, the attractive aviatrix who runs the airfield, Candido, a surly maintenance worker employed by Palm, and Gabe Parrish, a retired boxer. Naturally, everyone has secrets to keep--but the truths lurking beneath the surface this time may make this Walker's final case. THE AMOS WALKER SERIES: Poison Blonde / Retro / Nicotine Kiss / American Detective / The Left-handed Dollar / Infernal Angels / Burning Midnight / Don't Look for Me / You Know Who Killed Me / The Sundown Speech / The Lioness is the Hunter / Black and White Ball / When Old Midnight Comes Along / Cutthroat Dogs / Monkey in the Middle THE PAGE MURDOCK SERIES: The High Rocks / Stamping Ground / Murdock's Law / City of Widows / White Desert / Port Hazard / The Book of Murdock / Cape Hell / Wild Justice THE PETER MACKLIN SERIES: Something Borrowed, Something Black / Little Black Dress THE VALENTINO MYSTERIES: Frames / Alone / Alive! / Shoot / Brazen / Indigo Other books by Loren D. Estleman: Aces & Eights The Ballad of Black Bart Black Powder, White Smoke The Book of Murdock The Branch and the Scaffold and Billy Gashade The Confessions of Al Capone The Eagle and the Viper Gas City Jitterbug Journey of the Dead and The Undertaker's Wife The Long High Noon and The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion The Master Executioner Paperback Jack Ragtime Cowboys The Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association Roy & Lillie: A Love Story Thunder City At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Cut-Throat Dogs is a new Amos Walker novel from a Grand Master. “Loren D. Estleman is my hero.”—Harlan Coben “Someone is dead who shouldn’t be, and the wrong man is in prison.” Nearly twenty years ago, college freshman April Goss was found dead in her bathtub, an apparent suicide, but suspicion soon fell on her boyfriend. Dan Corbeil was convicted of her murder and sent to prison. Case closed. Or is it? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Two books-in-one in the Page Murdock series from award-winning author Loren D. Estleman The High Rocks U.S. Deputy Page Murdock rides into the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana in the dead of winter to bring in Bear Anderson, known as "Mountain That Walks" to the local Native Americans. Murdock, having grown up with Anderson, figures he owes it to the man to try to bring him in alive and give him a chance at a fair trial. But Murdock may have all he can handle in getting himself back down alive. Stamping Ground Deputy U.S. Marshall Page Murdock isn't happy when Judge Blackthorne decides to send him on an assignment to North Dakota, a land of sudden blizzards and spring floods. And to make matters worse he has been handed the nearly impossible job of apprehending the renegade responsible for several massacres in the area. This edition of the book is the deluxe, tall rack mass market paperback. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Johnny Vermillion's theater troupe brings masterpieces to the Wild West--and is suspected of helping itself to the bank vault at the same time. A Pinkerton man becomes the troupe's severest critic and sets a clever trap for the entertaining rogue.