Loren D Estleman Books in Order

Owen Wister's The Virginian provides the starting point for this study of Western fiction. Estleman traces the genre's development through its writers, recurring themes, and connections with film, examining how stories shaped ideas about the American West.

Virgil Ballard becomes a notorious bank robber during the Prohibition era. This crime novel follows his violent rise in the Midwest, tracing the earlier years that helped turn him into a wanted gangster.

Deputy Page Murdock rides into Montana's Bitterroot Mountains in winter to arrest Bear Anderson, a man he knew growing up. He hopes to bring Anderson back alive for trial, but surviving the return journey becomes its own challenge.

Detroit private investigator Amos Walker searches for a former mobster's missing adopted daughter, with a pornographic photograph as his main clue. The case draws him toward a kidnapping and a labor leader's murder.

Judge Blackthorne sends Deputy Page Murdock into North Dakota to capture Ghost Shirt, a renegade Cheyenne leader blamed for massacres. Murdock must pursue his quarry through badlands where sudden storms and floods can be as dangerous as gunfire.

Eighteen-year-old Jeff Curry joins an old buffalo hunter's journey across the West, hoping for adventure. When they help a Native American wanted for murder, their hunting expedition becomes a dangerous flight from men pursuing a fugitive.

Wild Bill Hickok's killing at a Deadwood poker table leaves questions about gunman Jack McCall's motives. This Western explores the murder and its aftermath, looking beyond the familiar legend to the people caught in the case.

Stripper Ann Maringer hires Amos Walker because she expects to disappear and wants someone to find her. When she vanishes and a body turns up in her apartment, the Detroit detective must unravel the danger she anticipated.

Deputy Page Murdock arrives in Breen, Montana, pursuing an outlaw and finds himself appointed town marshal. Caught in a range dispute between powerful ranchers and smaller operators, he tries to enforce the law amid escalating violence.

Amos Walker follows a trucker suspected of staging hijackings, only to be forced off the road. After the policeman who helps him is shot, Walker investigates a case that has suddenly become much more personal.

Aging former marshal Irons St. John is drawn out of retirement to pursue a gang robbing banks and trains. He assembles an unlikely posse whose experience must compensate for failing bodies and the bandits' ingenuity.

Newscaster Sandy Broderick hires Amos Walker to find his missing adult son while keeping the matter quiet. The young man's involvement with an addicted girlfriend takes Walker into Detroit's drug trade, threatening both lives and a public career.

Buffalo hunter Asa North takes a bounty to kill Black Jack, a wolf preying on cattle in Idaho's Caribou Mountains. While North tracks the animal, men seeking him turn the hunt into a struggle for his own survival.

An elderly woman asks Amos Walker to find her grandson, who disappeared nearly twenty years earlier after his father killed the family. The Detroit detective reopens the cold trail of a boy left alone with that tragedy.

This fictional account follows Buffalo Bill Cody from his frontier youth through his career as scout and showman. As his life draws toward its close, it examines the distance between the man and the image he created.

An Iowa farm boy leaves home and learns to make his living through violence on the frontier. This Western follows his passage through lawlessness and gun work, examining how a reputation as a killer takes shape.

Four lawmen have been found hanged in Montana, and Deputy Page Murdock investigates the killings. A renegade posse is targeting men who wear badges, forcing him to track the killers while avoiding becoming their next victim.

When journalist Barry Stackpole disappears, his wartime friend Amos Walker searches for him. Newspaper clippings and an unfinished Vietnam novel draw the detective into apparently separate deaths, organized crime, and corruption within Detroit's police.

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral places Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and their opponents at the center of a brief, deadly confrontation. This Western follows the violence and legal aftermath behind one of the frontier's best-known stories.

An old acquaintance asks Amos Walker to find the trombone-playing father she thought was dead. His search through Detroit's jazz clubs brings warnings from organized crime and exposes her to dangers bound up with the missing musician.

Richard DeVries hires Amos Walker after serving twenty years for a firebombing during Detroit's 1967 riots. Claiming he was framed to cover an armored-car robbery, he wants the detective to recover the stolen money as compensation.

Detective Ralph Poteet helps a neighboring sex worker dispose of a priest found dead in her bed. His attempt to profit through blackmail instead pulls them into murder attempts and a conspiracy reaching beyond Detroit.

Amos Walker is hired to investigate the husband Constance Thayer shot, hoping to uncover evidence that might help her defense. The dead industrialist's secrets lead him into a case involving gunrunners and powerful people.

This collection brings together Loren D. Estleman’s Western short fiction, ranging from an Easterner’s encounter with frontier life to a disturbing supernatural tale. The stories explore the people and dangers of an unsettled West through varied historical and imaginative conflicts.

A former actress introduces Amos Walker to a government assassin who wants help disappearing. The job becomes entangled with Walker's ex-wife, competing loyalties, and murder, leaving him to determine which stories he can trust.

Reporter Connie Minor covers Detroit's criminal underworld during Prohibition, when liquor smuggled from Canada creates fortunes. His encounters with rising gangster Jack Dance place him close to a violent struggle for control of the city's rackets.

Former Detroit policeman Rick Amery takes a job investigating a consumer advocate for General Motors. In the tense period before the 1967 riots, his assignment intersects with corporate interests and the city's growing racial and criminal conflicts.

Thirteen-year-old David Grayle acquires a map to gold stolen during the Civil War and joins an expedition to recover it. Their journey into the Dakota Badlands draws treasure hunters into the reach of men with dangerous secrets.

Former Detroit Tigers pitcher Doc Miller returns from prison determined to stay out of trouble. A job driving for a bail bondsman instead brings him among drug dealers and political figures, where a cop's murder threatens his fresh start.

Page Murdock travels to New Mexico to pursue a corrupt sheriff and his supposedly dead brother. Posing as a retired gunman with a saloon interest, he enters a border town where old acquaintances complicate the assignment.

Former crime reporter Connie Minor is hired to promote Ford's new Edsel in 1950s Detroit. His return to the city's power circles draws him into an investigation of an attack on a union leader and dangerous old connections.

After an off-duty policeman shoots three Black men at a New Year's Eve party, officer Charles Battle investigates. His work confronts racism inside Detroit's police department and uncovers a wider conflict involving robbery, radical politics, and weapons.

Wandering musician Billy Gashade recalls the frontier life that followed his escape from New York's draft riots. Playing in saloons and brothels brings him into contact with outlaws, lawmen, and other figures behind the West's legends.

Amos Walker searches for missing video producer Neil Catalin, whose fascination with film noir may hold a clue. A former mistress, business connections, and a growing murder investigation draw Walker through a Detroit summer plagued by power outages.

A killer wearing a stolen military uniform targets people he considers enemies of the war effort in Detroit. Lieutenant Maximilian Zagreb and a depleted police force hunt him while wartime pressures deepen the city's racial tensions.

An elderly alchemist recounts Sheriff Pat Garrett's life, including his pursuit of Billy the Kid. Haunted by the young outlaw, Garrett moves through New Mexico's violence, personal losses, and shifting opportunities as the frontier changes around him.

A dying architect hires Amos Walker to find whoever used a forged photograph to destroy his engagement years earlier. The detective's search for the source of that deception turns an old heartbreak into a current murder investigation.

Amos Walker guards a ransom exchange for a stolen medieval manuscript, but the assignment collapses into gunfire and disappearance. The ensuing investigation reaches back to the unsolved killing of his partner twenty years earlier.

Aspiring writer Dmitri Pulski becomes a screenwriter for a struggling film company in 1913 Los Angeles. As its crew tries to finish a Yukon adventure, debts and pressure from a powerful patent trust threaten their work.

At the start of Detroit's automobile age, Harlan Crownover backs Henry Ford against his father's wishes. Seeking money from the Mafia brings his business ambitions into conflict with the established political and industrial powers controlling the city.

A publisher hires Amos Walker to locate a pulp novelist who returned his advance and disappeared. Finding the writer brings Walker into a case connecting old paperback careers, a long-ago murder, and Detroit's troubled past.

Deputy Marshal Page Murdock follows a vicious gang into northern Canada during a punishing winter. Far from familiar territory, he must overcome determined enemies and the wilderness itself to complete his pursuit and survive.

Professional hangman Oscar Stone devotes decades to perfecting executions, treating death as an exacting craft. His obsession costs him his marriage, and an unexpected encounter with his past forces him to reconsider the life he has built.

Two fugitives develop reputations as legendary gunfighters while traveling the postwar West. A journalist and an ambitious promoter seek to bring them together for a public contest, turning violent histories into a marketable spectacle.

Amos Walker is hired to find an automobile magnate's illegitimate descendants so his widow can share her fortune. Locating them seems easy, until violence and a kidnapping transform a family search into a dangerous investigation.

Singer Gilia Cristobal hires Amos Walker to locate a missing blackmailer whose information could expose her troubled past. When the woman turns up dead, Walker must find whoever now controls the secrets threatening his client.

Hired killers keep arriving in Montana to eliminate Page Murdock, who follows their trail to San Francisco's Barbary Coast. Surrounded by corruption and criminal power, the marshal must discover who wants him dead and why.

Delivering a dying woman's ashes to her estranged son draws Amos Walker into two murders separated by decades. When the same gun links both deaths and suspicion falls on him, he must uncover the connection.

Drawing on his experience as a novelist, Estleman offers practical guidance on writing commercially oriented fiction. The book covers choosing a genre, conducting research, developing dialogue and point of view, and turning preparation into finished work.

Still recovering from a gunshot wound, Amos Walker searches for the cigarette smuggler who saved his life. The disappearance leads toward counterfeiters and possible terrorist connections, while fresh violence and a murder accusation threaten his investigation.

Retired undertaker Richard Connable is summoned to conceal the circumstances of a financier's death. While he works, his wife Lucy reflects on their travels, losses, marriage, and the demanding profession that shaped their life together.

Johnny Vermillion's traveling theater troupe uses performances as cover for bank robberies across the West. A Pinkerton detective notices the connection between their appearances and local crimes, setting a trap for the versatile actors.

A former baseball pitcher hires Amos Walker to investigate his daughter's fiancé, whom he suspects of fortune hunting. Her murder sends Walker after the missing suspect and into a web of gangsters, debts, and crooked police.

Photographer Monte Nagler documents Detroit locations featured in the Amos Walker mysteries, pairing images with passages from the novels. Estleman's introduction considers the city's role in the series, while landmarks and imagined settings reveal its noir atmosphere.

Film archivist Valentino discovers a skeleton and a priceless lost print of Greed while restoring an old theater. To keep police from endangering the fragile film as evidence, he must solve the murder within three days.

A serial killer's rampage destabilizes an industrial city where police, organized crime, and business have maintained a corrupt equilibrium. A police chief, Mafia boss, and ambitious reporters become entangled in a widening struggle for power.

A wealthy collector offers Valentino rare Greta Garbo footage in exchange for investigating a blackmailing assistant. When the assistant is killed and the collector claims self-defense, the film archivist must determine what really happened.

Judge Isaac Parker arrives in frontier Fort Smith determined to impose order through uncompromising justice. His controversial sentences and the dangerous missions of his marshals bring him into conflict with outlaws and critics of his methods.

This collection brings together thirty-two previously published stories featuring Detroit private investigator Amos Walker, alongside a new story and the author's introduction. The shorter cases offer another view of the detective whose work anchors Estleman's long-running series.

Frontier judge Roy Bean becomes captivated by actress Lillie Langtry, whose glamorous life unfolds far from his Texas saloon. Their contrasting careers and his distant devotion form a story of celebrity, longing, and unlikely romantic attachment.

Page Murdock goes undercover as a traveling preacher to track armed robbers in Texas. A hurried education in religion barely prepares the whiskey-drinking marshal for dangerous encounters and familiar faces that could expose his disguise.

A lawyer hires Amos Walker to challenge a gangster's old attempted-murder conviction, even though the victim was Walker's closest friend. Conflicting loyalties become harder to navigate when new killings complicate the investigation.

Hired to recover stolen television converter boxes, Amos Walker discovers they concealed a deadly shipment of heroin. As suspects are murdered, he must work through old alliances and enemies to locate the drugs and their traffickers.

Film preservation specialist Valentino searches for vanished movies and the people who may still possess them. His work leads through remote locations and Hollywood’s past, where finding a surviving fragment sometimes means confronting someone willing to kill to keep it hidden.

Amos Walker tries to extract a young man from a Detroit gang at a friend's request. Murders, suspicious fires, and escalating street violence suggest the local feud conceals a larger conspiracy with international connections.

Loren D. Estleman gathers his Sherlock Holmes stories with essays examining the detective and his creator. The collection includes an unpublished opening chapter, unusual cases, and reflections on storytelling, offering both new adventures and a closer look at Holmes’s enduring appeal.

Valentino receives a lead on Bela Lugosi's lost Frankenstein screen test, a discovery film enthusiasts would treasure. But deaths connected to the footage turn his search for cinematic history into a struggle to stay alive.

Loren D. Estleman assembles Sherlock Holmes pastiches by several writers alongside his new title novella. The anthology revisits the detective through varied mysteries and voices, bringing previously scattered stories together with a fresh encounter involving the legacy of Moriarty.

In 1944, FBI agent Peter Vasco poses as a priest to win the confidence of the ailing Al Capone. Ordered to extract secrets about the Chicago mob, he encounters a man whose ruthlessness coexists with unexpected complexity.

A missing woman's instruction to leave her alone only deepens Amos Walker's curiosity. His search uncovers a corpse, criminal connections, and foreign agents, drawing him into a dangerous scheme far beyond an ordinary marital disappearance.

In 1921 Los Angeles, Wyatt Earp asks retired detective Charlie Siringo to recover a missing horse. Joined by young Dashiell Hammett, Siringo follows the theft toward a wider conspiracy involving Hollywood, Jack London's farm, and powerful interests.

Edited by Loren D. Estleman, this anthology combines classic Sherlock Holmes reprints with four original tales. Its selection brings different writers’ interpretations of the detective together, exploring new cases alongside earlier efforts to extend and reimagine his adventures.

Fresh from rehabilitation, Amos Walker investigates tips about a suburban man's unsolved murder. A public appeal, anonymous reward, and witness-protection connections draw him into conflict with officials while he struggles to control his own addiction.

During World War II, Detroit’s Racket Squad confronts black-market criminals, saboteurs, and unrest while much of the police force serves overseas. Ten stories follow the four officers known as the Four Horsemen through violent cases in a strained industrial city.

Cowboys Randy Locke and Frank Farmer have spent decades trying to kill each other. When promoters suggest staging their next duel before paying spectators, their private hatred becomes a public spectacle with fatal stakes.

Amos Walker locates a missing film director apparently murdered after disappearing with investors' money. When one client is arrested, Walker investigates again, finding that the evidence and continued attacks may conceal a far stranger explanation.

Former actress Beata Limerick fears the violent fates of Hollywood's famous blond stars. When her death is staged to resemble Marilyn Monroe's, Valentino must investigate a killer who appears to be recreating cinematic tragedies.

Page Murdock travels by train into Mexico to investigate a former Confederate officer allegedly raising an army. With unreliable companions and a hostile desert ahead, he must prevent a campaign that could reignite the Civil War.

Eighteen crime stories follow gangsters, investigators, hired killers, and ordinary people pushed toward violence by desperation. Drawn from forty years of Loren D. Estleman’s short fiction, the collection explores dangerous choices in Detroit and other troubled places.

Western star Red Montana asks Valentino to recover an explicit film that could destroy his dying wife's wholesome image. Offered a priceless lost movie in exchange, the archivist accepts an investigation driven by blackmail and Hollywood secrets.

These stories follow Claudius Lyon, an amateur investigator determined to imitate Nero Wolfe, and his ex-convict assistant Arnie Woodbine. Their unlikely partnership tackles mysteries while Lyon's devotion to his fictional model invites comic complications.

Stagecoach robber Black Bart conceals his criminal career behind a respectable San Francisco identity, leaving poems at his crimes. Wells Fargo detective James Hume makes catching him a personal mission in an extended contest of wits.

Three clients bring Amos Walker conflicting demands about a missing property developer. A death soon complicates the search, attracting police, federal authorities, and international criminals as Walker tries to determine whose interests he is serving.

Hit man Peter Macklin forces Amos Walker to protect his estranged wife while he pursues whoever threatened her. Suspicion points toward Macklin's equally dangerous son, placing the detective between two killers and competing family loyalties.

After Judge Blackthorne's death, Page Murdock escorts his remains across the country by rail. The journey prompts recollections of their work bringing law to Montana and the triumphs, losses, and contradictions of settling the frontier.

Valentino obtains the only surviving print of a forgotten noir film and plans to bring it before audiences. Investigating its vanished star's fate stirs resistance from people who would prefer the movie and its secrets remain buried.

A government official hires Amos Walker to determine whether his long-missing wife is dead so he can remarry. Revisiting the disappearance uncovers a retired detective's suspicions and another killing connected to the abandoned car.

A chance encounter during a bank robbery leads Amos Walker to reinvestigate a decades-old murder conviction. The prisoner's sister wants exoneration, but reluctant witnesses, a true-crime celebrity, and the convicted man's despair obstruct the search.

A Christmas Eve bombing in Paris fails to kill Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800, leaving civilians dead and buildings destroyed. In this historical thriller, the surviving conspirators pursue a more sinister plan, extending the assassination campaign beyond the documented attack.

Detroit private investigator Amos Walker receives news of his former wife's death and welcomes the distraction of a new case. A young aspiring investigative journalist seeks help after becoming dangerously overextended, drawing Walker into another inquiry where reliable truths are scarce.

Returning from war in 1946, pulp writer Jacob Heppleman reinvents himself as crime novelist Jack Holly in the booming paperback industry. Success attracts Hollywood, but a gangster demands payment for his help while congressional moral crusaders threaten the business.

A Cleveland automobile magnate hires Amos Walker to investigate his stepson's murder, suspecting a connection to insider trading. Following a former employee leads Walker into another killing and a web of secrets surrounding a private airfield.

Film detective Valentino seeks funding to restore an old drive-in theater, but a prospective benefactor first wants help with a blackmailer. The investigation leads toward the last surviving print of Cleopatra, drawing Valentino into Hollywood secrets that threaten his life.

Film star Buck Jones wants the truth behind legendary lawman Iron St. John, whose memoirs concealed much of his past. Retired detective Emmet Rawlings revisits their final manhunt, confronting his own memories while preparing a story that could finance his future.

Twelve crime stories follow people on both sides of the law as betrayal, temptation, and violence threaten their lives. An undercover officer, a struggling prizefighter, and a whiskey-loving assassin confront the darker consequences of their decisions and ambitions.

As wildfire smoke blankets Detroit, Amos Walker investigates a junior lawyer's fatal hit-and-run and the confidential documents missing from his possession. Further deaths suggest the crash was deliberate, making the vanished file a dangerous prize.

Widow Sage Holland travels from Alaska to Detroit seeking protection from her husband's vengeful brother, who blames her for his death. Amos Walker's investigation uncovers further bodies as he struggles to keep his client and himself alive.