The Witchfinder

Starred review from May 4, 1998
Mystery fans who think that Estleman's novels about the Detroit-based PI Amos Walker (returned after a seven-year retirement in 1997's Never Street) make him the natural heir of Raymond Chandler will have that conviction confirmed here. Walker's latest tale is so rich in Chandler-esque dialogue and description that it would likely elicit a boozy chuckle of recognition from the master himself: "Stuart Lund came in at six-two and three hundred pounds in gray silk tailoring with a large head of wavy yellow hair, blue eyes like wax drippings, and a black chevron-shaped moustach he hadn't bothered to bleach." Lund is a lawyer who summons Walker to a secret meeting at a Detroit airport hotel with Jay Bell Furlong, a world-famous architect who is supposedly dying in Los Angeles. Before he passes on, Furlong wants Walker to find the person who ended the architect's romance with a much younger woman eight years ago by sending him a photo of her in bed with another man. Furlong has just discovered that the photo was a fake. The possible suspects include various Furlong family members and several rivals. Struggling through an overheated Detroit described as vividly and lovingly as Chandler's L.A., Walker survives a bullet to his head and sneaks out of the hospital against doctors' orders to get on with the case, just as Philip Marlowe would have. There may be a few too many descriptions of staircases, buildings and old cars, but Estleman more than makes up for these digressions by drawing new life from one of the genre's classic resources.