Burning Midnight

Loren D. Estleman’s Burning Midnight (2012) is the twenty-second book in the twenty-seven-book Amos Walker mystery series. Estleman published his first novel in 1976. He once worked as a reporter, honing his journalistic skills while he wrote after work. In 1980, he left his job to write full time. He has written hundreds of short stories and articles, as well as eighty books. Translated into twenty-seven languages, Estleman’s books have won numerous awards such as the Shamus, Spur, Stirrup, and Western Heritage. Nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe award in 2012, he has also been nominated for the National Book Award and was bestowed the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Western Writers of America in 2012. He lives in Michigan with his wife, writer Deborah Morgan.

Burning Midnight features protagonist Amos Walker, a private investigator. The story is set in Detroit, a city treated with much reverence in Estleman’s novels. Detroit is said to act as an actual character in the series. Providing a dramatic backdrop to the darkness of dueling gangs and an underground crime world, the setting takes on a greater significance to the story, transcending time. Burning Midnight is not attached to a particular time, thereby lending an otherworldly quality to the story.

One interesting quality of Estleman’s work is that appearances are often deceiving. Amos Walker is a middle-aged private investigator, a “seen it all” kind of man with a grit bestowed upon those who live a certain kind of life. He is known as an old-school private eye who loves his hardscrabble city in spite of its flaws and darker underbelly. This sets Walker apart simply because he cares. He works in a run-down, crumbling old building and keeps his liquor in a desk drawer. Though he loves his cigarettes and booze, he is a stand-up kind of guy with a heart of gold. Walker knows everything there is to know about Detroit, his hometown. He knows the highs and the lows and that includes the gangs of Mexicantown, an undesirable section of Detroit.



A request from an old ally and friend, Detroit Police Inspector Alderdyce, to get his son’s brother-in-law, Ernesto Pasada, out of one of the feuding gangs sends Walker on a path to trouble in no time. Ernesto has started hanging out in the seedy part of Detroit known as Mexicantown with the well-known gang, the Maldados. One of the gang leaders is missing and tensions are mounting. Alderdyce hopes that Walker can convince the Maldados that Ernesto is not worth the trouble, and they should cut him loose. The Inspector tries to give Walker a good reason to start asking questions around Mexicantown, but as soon as he does so, the death count begins to rise. Bottle bombs and suspicious fires start soon after. Apparently, the two gangs, the Maldados and their rival, the Zapatistas, have no problem with killing cops too. Acts of vandalism quickly turn to murder, and Walker is no longer sure he can save Ernesto from trouble. He soon finds himself in the middle of an all-out gang war.

With Walker, a promise is a promise and once involved, he realizes that there is more to what is going on. He stumbles upon a bigger picture of conspiracy that threatens his local world and the city he loves. Walker is in too deep and can no longer back out; like all committed detectives, he pushes forward to solve a dangerous mystery, hopefully keeping himself from being jailed or killed in the process.

His fans claim Estleman is one of the best crime fiction writers of his time and in a class by himself. He is best known for his Amos Walker series. He writes classic detective stories appealing to die-hard genre fans. Navigating the world of Amos Walker is relatively simple as readers can jump into any book in the series without having to read the series chronologically to get recurring character backgrounds and a feel for Walker’s style and approach.