The first novel in Estleman's Detroit series, Whiskey River, takes the reader into Detroit's dark and dangerous Prohibition era where true events and real people are cooked together with vivid imagination, humor and grit to serve up a tasty story. Torture, murder, prostitution, political scandals, suicides, grand jury trials, corruption, and Detroit's seedy underground keep the reader enthralled.
Constance "Connie" Minor goes from having bylines in the local newspaper to his own column in the tabloids. The price for this upgrade? Riding shotgun with warring mob bosses, Jack Dance and Joey Machine. He gets a ringside seat to kidnappings, smuggling, and up-close and personal torture and murder. Why is so liked by these mobsters is beyond me.
Hattie was one of my favorite characters. By day her establishment was a funeral home but by night the lights were turned low for more "lively" entertainment. She was a dame who took no gruff from anyone.
As an aside, I found the inequality and racism a little difficult to stomach, especially since nothing has changed since the 1930s: "Is he white?...If he weren't they wouldn't have bothered to call it in" (p 57).
I most enjoyed Whiskey River as a period piece. the 1930s comes alive with the vernacular, fashion, and transportation of the day: spats, derbies, top coats, silks, wingtips, stoles, fedoras, stockings, LaSalles, Auburns, Packards, Model As, Vikings, Buicks, and blind pigs. ( )

Part of a series, which I did not know when randomly choosing this title, covering the history of Detroit (and America) by decade. Whiskey River is set in the 1930s, the era of Prohibition and speakeasies, or blind pigs, police corruption (ha) and tabloid journalism.

At the end of the decade, journalist turned ad man Connie Minor is called to give evidence in court, and recounts his association ten years earlier with two warring gangsters, the urbane and unpredictable Jack Dance and his former boss Joey Machine. Everybody but the narrator ends up dead after many dramatic exploits, of course, but Estleman brings all of the characters, major and minor, vividly to life and blends Detroit's dark history with a wonderful feel for noir fiction in the style of Hammett and Chandler.

This was becoming real. I asked Jack if he thought guns would be necessary. “Only for shooting.” He let out the clutch. “Bon voyage, gents. We’re in the wrong country.”

Constance 'Connie' Minor, who wants to run with the big boys but is more often than not left paralysed with fear, is an engaging character who reminded me of Archie Goodwin in the Rex Stout novels. He has an on-off relationship with a tart with a heart named Hattie, which he ruins by panicking when she proposes, and a complicated association with Jack Dance, a young bootlegger who started working for dangerous mobster Joey Machine before setting up his own empire. Dance and Machine spend the whole novel killing and kidnapping each other's men, trying to establish dominance in the Detroit underworld, with Connie caught in the middle. There are countless gunfights and various vicious murders, including a slit throat and the torture of a sympathetic side character.

That’s the story, end of column, thirty; and if you think it’s been too long in the telling then I’ve made a bum job of it, because it should seem no more than a brazen moment in time.

I really enjoyed the blend of fact and fiction, the fast-paced action and the sharp dialogue, and could imagine the characters in a film or miniseries, but must admit to a bit of a reading lag - some of the slower chapters brought me to a halt altogether. A shorter, tighter plotted novel might have earned an extra star. ( )

A good read for those of us in Southeast Michigan. It slowed a bit in the middle, but the history & characters kept me reading.

The first in what was intended to be a trilogy, there are now seven entries in this series chronicling the history of Detroit through fiction. As the title suggests, this novel concerns the Prohibition Era. The narrator is Connie Minor, a newspaper columnist, a brash young man who thinks he knows how the world works. One night he innocently befriends a stranger in an underground speakeasy, never thinking this man would soon begin his rise through the underworld. It’s an unexpected relationship that serves both men, and through the reporter’s eyes we are allowed to experience the life of a 1930’s gangster. Connie is allowed to ride along with a dead-of-night caravan that crosses a frozen Lake Erie in order to smuggle alcohol into the United States from Canada. But he also witnesses a gruesome murder in the company of a rival mob boss, intentionally up close and sickening, a stern reminder of his position and vulnerability. Connie must find a way to continue to do his job while navigating his corrupt and dangerous city. As with most of Estleman’s work, this book is enormously entertaining. I didn’t expect it to be as informative as well. ( )

Having never read Michigan author Loren Estleman and being interested in the history of the Detroit underworld, I decided to give this one a shot. By using an authentic sounding narrative tone and mixing in actual events and people with his fictitious cast, the author creates an engaging story. It was easy to imagine the atmosphere of Prohibition Era Detroit. I was always fascinated by my mother's accounts of playing upstairs with all of the other kids at her "uncle's house" when her parents were downstairs visiting the speakeasy or blind pig as it was known in Detroit. I may be compelled to read more of this author's books! ( )