Sinister Heights
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Estleman's 15th lively novel to feature Detroit PI Amos Walker (after 2000's A Smile on the Face of a Tiger), Walker is hired by the young widow of a recently deceased multi-millionaire centenarian who wishes to mitigate the sexist offenses of her former love-'em-and-leave-'em spouse by sharing some of her millions with his victims. Even some of Estleman's own characters find this hard to believe. Not impossible, mind you. Just hard to believe. For the first third of the novel, veteran noir fans will understand that Amos is being set up for a double-cross, which comes in the form of a lethally souped-up pickup truck barreling down on him on the highway. One of the women he was asked to find is killed, another hospitalized and her child abducted. What's going on? And who's behind it? Unfortunately, the answers to these questions and the means by which Amos discovers them are as implausible as the rest of the story, and the violence involved in bringing the guilty to justice is ludicrous. On the positive side, when he isn't beating somebody up or being beaten, Amos is a most congenial host, given to witty banter with the rest of the cast; and there's Estleman's dazzling Detroit, its past, present and future. Estleman has written a lot of books, and Amos is sure to have a lot of fans who'll find his Rambo-like antics perfectly plausible. Whether they'll like this as well as the previous books in the series, they'll find it neither humorless nor dull.
