An elderly woman struggles to get to Amos Walker's office, asking him to track down her grandson, who was adopted by her son's sister-in-law after the rest of the family was gunned down by her son. Walker treats her very kindly, and tracks down one of the detectives to start his tracing. He finds the sister-in-law via the son's coin magazine subscription only to learn he drowned in Cabo. When he tells the grandmother, she asks him to use the rest of her retainer to find what is purported to be a family heirloom: a silver cross with inlaid lapis lazuli and garnet stones, which was in her son's home. Meanwhile, Walker picks up a second case trying to buy off a someone threatening a dissident Russian writer, who is also a collector of fine antiques. The stories intertwine and Walker spends a weekend being drugged/interrogated to find the missing artifact. Dogged at they come, Walker solves several mysteries in this one. 3.5 stars.
( )

Winner of the Shamus Award for best Private Eye Novel of 1984.
An Amos Walker Mystery. This case leads Walker into Detroit's ethnic neighborhoods when an old Polish woman hires him to find her missing grandson and a Russian writer claims to need protection from the KGB.
Martha Evancek was an old woman who desperately needed detective Amos Walker's help in investigating the disappearance of her grandson, Michael.
Poverty and frustration had driven Michael's father Joseph to the edge. He had murdered his wife, his young daughter Carla, and then himself. However, Michael escaped because he came home late from school that tragic day. The last Martha ever heard of him was that he was entrusted to the care of an aunt she never knew. Now, after nineteen years there was still no trace of him.
As the plot thickens, Amos finds himself trapped in another case -- an eminent Russian writer who suspects he is a target for murder. Will Amos be able to solve the mystery before he is the next victim? To find out, you will have to read Sugartown.
Spring has come to Detroit's Sugartown enclave, and Amos Walker would like to feel kindly toward the human race. Unfortunately, his first case of the new season immediately leads him into trouble among the Polish settlers of neighboring Hamtramck, when old Martha Evancek hires him to look for her missing grandson. But even before Walker gets a chance to investigate the almost two-decade-old disappearance, a second case presents itself. This time, it's an eminent Russian novelist, exiled and famous, who fears that someone is trying to cancel his next book by canceling its author. Something connects the two cases;Walker knows it. But finding that elusive link might just wind up costing him his life… ( )