Literature
Loren D. Estleman
born 1952 · crime and Western novelist
Michigan crime writer whose Amos Walker private-eye novels and multi-volume Detroit series retell the city's 20th-century history through its underworld.
- Born
Ann Arbor, Michigan
age 74- Birth name
- Loren Daniel Estleman
- Field
- Literature
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Estleman was born in Ann Arbor and has spent his life in southeastern Michigan, graduating from Eastern Michigan University in 1974 and working as a newspaper reporter before turning to fiction full-time. Since Motor City Blue (1980) his hard-boiled detective Amos Walker has walked the streets of Detroit, from downtown towers to decaying neighborhoods, in more than thirty books. His ambitious Detroit series, beginning with Whiskey River (1990), sets out to tell the story of 20th-century America through Detroit, moving from Prohibition rum-running and the auto boom to the 1967 uprising and beyond. He has also written dozens of Westerns and is one of the most honored American genre writers, with multiple Shamus and Spur Awards.
Highlights
- Amos Walker series, from Motor City Blue (1980), set in Detroit
- The Detroit novels, including Whiskey River (1990), Motown (1991) and Edsel (1995)
- Multiple Shamus Awards (private-eye fiction) and Spur Awards (Westerns)
- Amos Walker's Detroit (2007), a photo book with Monte Nagler