From Publishers Weekly
Amos Walker, Detroit PI, revisits the past in the 13th entry in an estimable hard-boiled series (The Witchfinder, etc.). In the echoing, nearly empty galleries of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Walker agrees to accompany a curator on a private mission to recover a recently stolen medieval illuminated manuscript, the Hours of the title. But in the rundown skin-flick theater where the transaction is to take place, Walker is distracted by a young woman and then shot at. The curator, his package, the woman and shooter disappear. The woman turns out to be the young wife ("she was pushing twenty but not hard enough to dent it") of the theater owner, a notorious and wealthy porn kingAand rare book collectorAconfined to a wheelchair. Also involved in the shooting is Earl North, the man who killed Walker's beloved first boss, Dale Leopold, 20 years before, a crime for which North went free. Vivid memories of Leopold combine with the debilitating effects of the flu and midwinter in Motor City to keep Walker on a bitter edge until, the flu broken and a connection between crimes old and new made, readers are led to the fitting conclusion. Like all Estleman offerings, this one comes with extraordinarily observant narration, intelligent dialogue, memorable charactersAand style to spare. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Estleman's redoubtable private eye Amos Walker returns in this tale of a lost medieval illuminated manuscript that he is hired to recover. Very much in the Sam Spade-Philip Marlowe mold, Amos walks the mean streets of Detroit, snarling and sneering but occasionally revealing his heart of gold. As is true of many of Estleman's books (Edsel), the plot is a bit convoluted and somewhat implausible, but he leaves no loose ends, and the description of Amos's closure in the death of his partner 20 years before is downright touching. The novel is replete with odd and curious similes, which when heard tend to send the listener off into a bemused line of thought. And given the hard-boiled nature of all the characters, the missing commodity might more reasonably have been a kilo of heroin or the loot from some jewel heist; a genteel artifact like a manuscript seems unlikely to have engaged these folks. The stellar performance of John Kenneth makes one wonder if the range of voices can be too goodAthe listener has to adapt constantly to wildly differing and wonderfully realized accents and inflections, and the relentless tough-guy reading of Amos sometimes sacrifices the sense of the words. But it's a good yarn, appropriately read, sure to be popular with Estleman fans and others who enjoy this genre.AHarriet Edwards, East Meadow P.L., NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
