Downriver
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
An ex-con hires Detroit PI Amos Walker to find the people who put him behind bars
Countless tragedies occurred in the three days of the 1967 Detroit riots, and one of them belonged to Richard DeVries. A twenty-two-year-old black man about to get his chance to play for the Pistons, he was spotted tossing a Molotov cocktail at an abandoned building and arrested on the spot. The police added armed robbery to the arson charge, and sent DeVries up the river for knocking over an armored car that he had never seen before.
Twenty years later he's set free, and the first man he calls on is Amos Walker. With twenty years of savings he buys a month of Walker's time, asking him for help finding the men who robbed the armored car. DeVries has already paid for stealing that $200,000, and now it's time to collect it.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Loren D. Estleman including rare photos from the author's personal collection.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The eighth Amos Walker novel (Motor City Blue) may not have an especially surprising chief villain, but Estleman is still in the top of the class of private-eye storytellers. Here Walker's client is Richard DeVries, fresh out of prison after a 20-year stretch for arson and armored-car robbery during the 1967 Detroit riots. DeVries, who's black, says he was framed for a murder committed during the robbery, and Walker believes him. DeVries also considers the $200,000 never found after the robbery as his due: "I paid for it, and now it's mine.'' He identifies a rising auto executive as the ``revolutionary'' who got him to throw the fire-bomb. Soon Walker finds himself involved with a hotshot, would-be car magnate, his ``ex-model'' wife and a centenarian auto pioneer. By the violent ending, Walker has uncovered a computer scam and some ugly, 20-year-old secrets. Estleman's colorful characters, crackling dialgoue, rich plot, authentic Detroit setting and throwaway humoras usualwork very well.
