The Witchfinder

In Puritan days, a "witchfinder" was the man responsible for accumulating the evidence that would put an accused witch on the gallows...or, rather, to manufacture it. At least according to Stuart Lund, the florid and flamboyant attorney for legendary architect Jay Bell Furlong, America's greatest designer since Frank Lloyd Wright...and the richest. The architect had had Wright's libido as well as his talent: he had married, over the age of eighty, an alluring young designer in his firm. Now, as he lies on his deathbed, his ex-wives and children wrangle over his fortune, and a photo arrives in the mail of Lily, his young wife, naked in the embrace of another man...Amos Walker's task: to find the witchfinder.Amazon.com Review"Stuart Lund came in at six-two and three hundred pounds in gray silk tailoring with a large head of wavy yellow hair, blue eyes like wax drippings, and a black chevron-shaped moustache he hadn't bothered to bleach." That description of a lawyer who summons private detective Amos Walker to a secret meeting with Jay Bell Furlong, a world-famous architect who is supposedly dying in Los Angeles, could have come straight from Raymond Chandler. So could characters with names like Royce Grayling and Lynn Arsenault. That's why Chandler fans should rejoice that Loren D. Estleman's Walker--who first appeared in 1997's Never Street--returns in grand style in The Witchfinder. Walking the wickedly hot streets of a Detroit described as vividly and lovingly as Chandler's Los Angeles, Walker searches for the nasty parties who faked a photo that shows Furlong's much younger lady friend in bed with another man, thereby scuttling the architect's last chance for romance. Walker takes a bullet to the head, sneaks out of the hospital too early, and generally behaves as though he hasn't heard that this classic branch of the mystery tree has been declared dead by so-called experts. Other Estleman outings in paperback include Red Highway, Stamping Ground, and Stress. From Publishers WeeklyMystery fans who think that Estleman's novels about the Detroit-based PI Amos Walker (returned after a seven-year retirement in 1997's Never Street) make him the natural heir of Raymond Chandler will have that conviction confirmed here. Walker's latest tale is so rich in Chandler-esque dialogue and description that it would likely elicit a boozy chuckle of recognition from the master himself: "Stuart Lund came in at six-two and three hundred pounds in gray silk tailoring with a large head of wavy yellow hair, blue eyes like wax drippings, and a black chevron-shaped moustach he hadn't bothered to bleach." Lund is a lawyer who summons Walker to a secret meeting at a Detroit airport hotel with Jay Bell Furlong, a world-famous architect who is supposedly dying in Los Angeles. Before he passes on, Furlong wants Walker to find the person who ended the architect's romance with a much younger woman eight years ago by sending him a photo of her in bed with another man. Furlong has just discovered that the photo was a fake. The possible suspects include various Furlong family members and several rivals. Struggling through an overheated Detroit described as vividly and lovingly as Chandler's L.A., Walker survives a bullet to his head and sneaks out of the hospital against doctors' orders to get on with the case, just as Philip Marlowe would have. There may be a few too many descriptions of staircases, buildings and old cars, but Estleman more than makes up for these digressions by drawing new life from one of the genre's classic resources. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.