Loren D. Estleman has written more than 60 novels and 200 stories in a range of genres: mystery, western and general. Next year Forge Books will commemorate the 30th anniversary of his creation of Detroit private eye Amos Walker with The Left-Handed Dollar, the 20th book in the series. Alone, the second novel in his series about Valentino, a film archivist and detective, was published this week by Forge.
Estleman has received 18 writing awards, including five Spurs and two Stirrups from the Western Writers of America, four Shamuses from the Private Eye Writers of America and the Elmer Kelton Award from the German Society for the Appreciation of the Western. He lives in Michigan with his wife, author Deborah Morgan. 
On your nightstand now:
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I by Edward Gibbon. It's been there for 20 years. Joined more recently by Sara Paretsky's Bleeding Kansas. She's been a close friend for years, but I never realized we both grew up on farms until I started this really fine book.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. This is a book you can enjoy at six or 60. Don't let anyone ever tell you writing for children is easier than writing for adults. You can pull the wool over a grownup's eyes, but kids are harder to con.
Your top five authors:
Robertson Davies, who wrote so well you don't care it's always about Canada. W. Somerset Maugham, for his ability to present horrible people doing unspeakable things without passing judgment on them. Edith Wharton, for the beauty and brevity of her prose. Raymond Chandler, who brought poetry to a genre once known as escape literature and elevated both it and America into world-class culture. Sax Rohmer, who doesn't make many best lists, but I keep coming back to him for the smell of mariposa, opium and the alleys of Limehouse. (I had to trim a lot of people, including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jack London from this list. Five is difficult.)
Book you've faked reading:
Algebra 101, but then so did everybody else. No one uses this stuff.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. The first fix is free....
Book you've bought for the cover:
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fanny Flagg. The roadside attraction-type illustration appealed to me, and so did the book, years before it was filmed.
Book that changed your life:
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. A beautiful piece of pure Americana, so heavy with imagery it scans as free verse. It's also a prime example of self-indulgence on Warren's part. The recent "restoration" of the original MS is no improvement, despite the claims of those who restored it; and the film starring Sean Penn is the definitive adaptation. The Oscar-winning 1949 version starring Broderick Crawford missed everything important, presenting it as a mildly scathing exposé of the corrupting influence of power, which is not at all what the story's about, any more than it's about Huey Long. This book taught me it's okay to lay it on thick.
Favorite line from a book:
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots ripped into my groin, and I was off on the biggest adventure of my life.... But first let me tell you a little about myself."
--Sleep Till Noon by Max Shulman
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. This may be the only benefit of Alzheimer's, allowing one to rediscover every lovely, brutal phrase.
