For readers like myself who love hard-boiled detective novels and their particular vernacular, Loren D. Estleman’s gritty Amos Walker series is manna from heaven. MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE, the latest entry, is set in the present day but written in this classic style. This makes for an enjoyable throwback of a reading experience coupled with a nice tribute to the genre.

Private eye Amos Walker leaves his office one hot Detroit summer evening to find a young man waiting for him by his car. Shane Sothern is a would-be investigative journalist who is writing a piece on 9/11, even though he was only three years old on that tragic day. For whatever reason, he feels like he is being followed ever since he began working on the article, and his apartment has been ransacked. Thus he is in need of Walker’s protection.

"MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE is fast-paced, hard-hitting detective writing at its finest with surprises at every turn."

After Shane leaves the office, Amos decides to follow him home to see for himself what this guy is all about. What surprises Amos isn’t necessarily the neighborhood Shane lives in, but the woman he interacts with outside his apartment. Amos swears he has seen that face before. Being old school, he spends some time in the library periodicals room and goes through a handful of papers until he finds who he’s looking for --- Abelia Hunt, who recently has been released on $100,000 bond for allegedly leaking U.S. government secrets to the press. Amos also knows her defense lawyer, Janet Grasso, who must have pulled some nice strings to get her client off with no bail. The problem for Amos now is that he can’t locate Shane or find a phone number for him, despite his many contacts.

But as luck would have it, Shane pops up again. Amos will now get to grill him on what he didn’t reveal from the outset and inform him that whoever tossed his apartment was probably a member of the Feds, the NSA or both, as either group would have interest in Hunt’s whereabouts. However, things become really complicated when Amos and Shane find the dead body of what appears to be a government agent in the abandoned Atlas Motors building next to Shane’s apartment building. Once again Amos is at a loss as to who might have been responsible. He still feels he is not being told the whole story and has no idea who he can trust.

To make matters even worse, Amos learns that his ex-wife, Catherine, has died. While they may not have had the best relationship, he is still moved by her passing and the invitation he received to her funeral by her most recent partner, Guy Prosper. You can imagine how surprised he is when Guy approaches him at the post-funeral meal to tell him that Catherine was being followed in the weeks prior to her death. Amos agrees to look into this but ultimately will be taken aback when he learns that Catherine’s death and the Shane Sothern/Abelia Hunt case actually cross lines with each other.

MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE is fast-paced, hard-hitting detective writing at its finest with surprises at every turn. The language is electric and so juicy that you will find yourself rereading passages just because the descriptions are such a delight. Estleman’s series is a must-read, and if you are discovering it for the first time, I encourage you to explore all the previous installments and enjoy.