The Popular Magazine, June 20, 1920

The Detour (complete novel) by L. H. Robbins concerns the automobile industry in Detroit. William Dallon, president of the Dallon Motor Car Company, is the main figure—a self-made industrialist who built the company from modest beginnings piloting an early horseless carriage. The narrative traces his journey from a machinist who demonstrated his vehicle across Michigan to Chicago, securing orders that founded the company. Now older, Dallon finds his son dismisses him as outdated. A subplot involves Felix Bray, a persistent inventor hawking an alternative motor design to established figures like William Dallon and financier Mr. Banniston, who dismissively offers five thousand dollars for the design while calling it merely "an interesting toy." The story presents Detroit's explosive industrial transformation and the tension between conservative business practices and young ambitions.