Fictional private detectives are a glut on the market. The highest accolade their creators can receive is to be compared to these icons, which is why so many dust jacket blurbs ballyhoo lesser writers as the next Dashiell Hammett or as the heir to Raymond Chandler’s mantle. But few deserve to be mentioned in the same breath.
One who does is Loren D. Estleman, whose superbly realized private eye, Amos Walker, has just appeared in “American Detective,” the 17th novel in a series that began with “Motor City Blue” in 1980.
Estleman pounds out his stories on a mechanical typewriter, just like Chandler did. Like Chandler, he writes in the first person, telling his story from the detective’s perspective. And his creation, Walker, superficially resembles Spade and Marlowe.
