Holmes on the Range, Steve Hockensmith

As one of the characters describes Holmes story, "The Red-Headed League," Holmes on the Range is a "A dandy little tale."

It's 1893 and the brothers Otto and Gustav Amlingmeyer, otherwise known as Big Red and Old Red, are itinerant cowboys in Montana. The previous year Gustav became a disciple of The Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes, after hearing his brother read "The Red-Headed League." As Otto describes it, Some people get religion. Gustav got Sherlock Holmes. Gustav is taken with the methods Holmes uses to solve cases, his powers of observation, and figures he would make a fine detective himself. I draw specific comparisons at the end of this post. You can which you can jump to them here Old Red and Sherlock Holmes

Old Red is curious about the mysterious and secretive Bar VR ranch and wrangles them a job there when the foreman comes to town recruiting. The Bar VR is British owned, VR being short for Victoria Regina.

When they get to the ranch they are met by Perkins, the manager, who tells them that their job is to keep quiet, do what they are told, go only where they are told to go, and don't try to show initiative. The Hornet's Nesters (as the new hands call themselves after the bar where they got the job) are put to work doing repairs and cleanup, no real cowboy work.

One day the deputy U.S. Marshall shows up to warn the ranch that Hungry Bob, an noted cannibal has escaped and may be in the area. The possible presence of Bob becomes a thread that runs through the rest of the story.

One night there is a terrible storm and all hands are on horseback trying to get the cattle to high ground. The next day it is discovered that Perkins is missing having last been seen by Big Red and Old Red during the storm. Everyone heads out to look for him. His remains are found, he apparently fell from his horse and was trampled. Big Red eloquently describes the remains - The remaining dribs and drabs of gristle were mixed in with the mud like strips of undercooked beef in a bowl of Texas chili.

Old Red thinks that Perkins' death might not have been an accident and decides I've got serious dectin' to do.

The absentee owner arrives with his entourage. He is the Duke of Balmoral, Richard Brackenstock de Vere St. Simon. Not long after there is another murder, Boudroux the albino negro, and Old Red gets the duke to agree to let him investigate before the authorities arrive. The duke is a gambler and is more interested in winning a bet with Edwards, a member of his party than seeing Old Red solve the case.

There is a danger that a novelty theme like cowboy detectives can't be sustained for an entire book but that isn't the case here. I enjoyed everything about the story. Parts of it might remind you of the movie Blazing Saddles and at times I heard Lefty and Dusty, the cowboys featured on Prairie Home Companion, in my head as I read.

Big Red and Old Red are simple cowboys but at the same time have a complexity that set them off from their peers. Big Red is literate and has worked as a clerk. Old Red, though illiterate, has a keen mind and powers of observation. He is a serious student of Holmes' methods and works on his deductifyin skills. The author works in the relationship of the brothers, how they are the remaining members of their family, and the bonds between them.

Old Red and Sherlock Holmes

In the world that Hockensmith created, Sherlock Holmes is a real person and the stories Big Red reads to Old Red are those written by Watson. As with Watson, the story is told in first person by Big Red who becomes the recorder. "Well, someone's gotta take down notes and such" says Old Red when asked why he needs his brother's assistance.

Otto tells us that Gustav got the nickname Old Red, not because of his age but his attitude, ..having as he does a crotchety side more befitting a man of seventy-two than twenty-seven. Holmes himself is twenty-seven in A Study in Scarlett and not shown as a cheerful and outgoing sort.

In the conclusion to A Study in Scarlet, Holmes describes analytical reasoning, reasoning backward from result to cause. Old Red displays that attribute when he and Big Red come upon the remains of Perkins after the stampede. Big Red accepts the evidence - Perkins fell off and was trampled. Old Red works backwards, looking for evidence to explain how it happened.

Hockensmith works in a direct link to Holmes. The British Duke St. Simon is the father of Robert St. Simon who was a client of Holmes in The Noble Bachelor. That case did not end happily for the St. Simon family.

In The Sign of the Four Holmes describes the three qualities needed for the ideal detective: power of observation, power of deduction, and knowledge. Like the French detective Francois Villard described in The Sign of the Four, Old Red only "deficient is the wide range of exact knowledge."

Old Red tells the Duke that I've made a study of the science of observation and deduction. Holmes uses this expression in his article, "The Book of Life" which Watson described as "ineffable twaddle."

Someone who has read A Study in Scarlet will see similarities between the scene where Big Red examines the murder of Boudreaux and Holmes exploring the scene of Enoch Drebber's murder: completely absorbed, muttering to himself, throwing himself flat on the ground to better examine a clue.

I believe that Holmes, encountering Big Red, would recognize in him a kindred spirit and hold him much higher regard than he does the detectives of Scotland Yard, Gregson and Lestrade. Remember, Holmes thinks his Baker Street Irregulars are more efficient than Scotland Yard so Holmes would have no difficulty acknowledging Old Red.

Holmes on the Range is a fun read with interesting characters and a good story that is Dickensian at the end. There are now two more books in the series - On the Wrong Track and The Black Dove - and I look forward in seeing how Old Red progresses with his Holmesifying.

Review: Bad Traffic, Simon Lewis

Scribner, 2008. ISBN 978-1-4165-9353-9. 375 pages.

I'm late coming to Bad Traffic (see links to reviews below) but it was a happy day when I spotted it on the new book shelf in the public library. This is Simon Lewis' first Inspector Jian novel but we can hope that there will be others. Simon has written guides to China, Beijing, and Shanghai and lives in Asia half the year. I think this must account for the air of authenticity that comes with the Chinese characters in the book.

Inspector Jian is a Chinese police officer with a daughter, Wei Wei, attending Leeds University. Jian receives a frantic call from his daughter begging him to help her. The call is cut off. Thirty-two hours later Jian is in England, unable to speak a word of English, but determined to find his daughter. At Leeds, he is fortunate to find a student who speaks Mandarin but gets the bad news that his daughter hasn't attended classes for four months.

In spite of his inability to communicate, Jian's skills as an investigator lead him to a Chinese restaurant where he encounters a thug who calls himself Black Fort. Wei Wei worked at the restaurant and Jian knows instinctively that Black Fort has something to do with his daughter.

A parallel story begins with Ding Ming who, along with his wife, has been smuggled into England. The men and women are separated and Ding Ming is taken off to harvest shell fish from coastal mud flats. He is desperate to find out what has happened to his wife but is put off with empty promises that he will soon see her.

The plight of Ding Ming and the other illegal immigrants is the core around which the story is built and the meaning of the title. These people are looking for a better life but are exploited by the traffickers in human lives, the snakeheads. If they survive the trip, they still owe a crippling fee, one they may be able to pay off in twenty years.

Jian isn't a particularly likable character. He works in a world of corruption and is setting up a mistress in an apartment when his daughter calls for help. But his commitment to Wei Wei is absolute and he is willing to take himself to a foreign country, unable to communicate, and without official sanction to find her. There is no finesse in the way Jian deals with obstacles - direct, often violent, application of force.

Communication is a thread throughout the story. Jian speaks only Mandarin. A key figure in his investigation speaks only Cantonese. Ding Ming speaks both English and Mandarin. The scenes where Jian and Ding Ming are together in a forced and, on ding Ming's part, reluctant partnership are some of the most interesting in the book.

There is a mini-story around the middle of the novel that deals with the Chinese owner of a fish and chips diner in rural England and his thoroughly Anglicized daughter. She has her own problem to solve though it does intersect with the main story. It provides a lighter moment in a fairly grim story.

This a fast paced and well plotted story. The cultural insights as well as the action pulled me along and I'm left wanting another Inspector Jian story.

Highly recommended.

Other Reviews
IT'S A CRIME!(OR A MYSTERY)
Simon Lewis Talks about Bad Traffic on IT'S A CRIME!(OR A MYSTERY)
Reading Matters
Necessary Acts of Devotion
Euro Crime

Review: Damn Near Dead: an Anthology of Geezer Noir, Duane Swiercznski ed.

Busted Flush Press, 2006. ISBN 0-9767157-5-9. 384 pages. Guest introduction by James Crumley.

Having achieved a certain age, the title of this anthology both intrigued and made me a bit anxious. Twenty-six reminders of getting older. But it is edited by Duane Swiercznski whose writing I enjoy and Busted Flush Press put out the Hell of a Woman anthology on of my favorite short story anthologies so I had to have it.

The stories are grouped in five parts: Twilight and Goodnights, Duffers and Bachelors, Killers and Cons, Guns and Geezers,and Felons and Friends. Duane added another level of organization; the stories appear in reverse chronological order of the birth year of the authors. Dave White's (b. 1979) "My Father's Gun" leads off the collection and John Harvey's (b. 1938) "Just Friends" closes it.

All of the stories are excellent making it difficult to select ones to feature in this review but here are four I picked out from the table of contents.

"Cranked" by Bill Crider (b.1941). "Cranked was nominated for a 2007 Edgar Award. It picks up after the story "Raining Willis" and tells us what happened to Karla after the meth lab exploded. I haven't read that story yet but it doesn't get in the way of enjoying "Cranked." It is the story of 76 year old ex-con Lloyd who breaks out of The Home, steals his daughter's car, meets Karla, and shows some young thugs that the old guy still has some moves. Bill has the most excellent Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine blog.

"Policy" by Megan Abbott (b. 1971). Two sentences into this story and I was thinking "wait a minute" I recognize this setting. It turns out that "Policy" is the short story that became Megan's Edgar Award winning Queenpin, a novel that made me a Megan Abbott fan. It is the story of a young woman who goes from being the bookkeeper for a strip club to the protege of an older mob connected woman. One isn't better than the other, I think of them as companion pieces. "Policy" works well as a short story and Megan said that "the story's kinda nastier--I didn't think I could maintain that for a whole book!" both "Policy" and Queenpin will remind you of Jim Thompson's The Grifters. Megan has a new novel coming out soon, Bury Me Deep. I love the cover.

Duan'e (b. 1972) contribution, "Say Goodnight to the Bad Man" looks at the consequences when a young fan of the pulps tracks down an author who published one brilliant novel then disappeared.

Stuart MacBride's (b. 1969) "Daphne McAndrews and the Smack-Headed Junkies" is one of my favorite stories in the anthology. Think cozy noir. Daphne is a terrific character and it is a nice, tightly written, darkly humorous story.

"Last Right" by Zoe Sharp (b. 1966). This is a story about reconciling past events. A young man returns to see his dying, domineering father.
I only know Zoe's work from short stories but I'm excited that Busted Flush Press will be bringing her previously unavailable Charlie Fox novels to the U.S. in 2010.

This is an excellent anthology and I highly recommend it. You might see a different side to authors you only know from novels and you may find new authors to read. Both are true in my case.

I would also like full marks for not using the word poignant.

Review: The Manual of Detection, Jededian Berry

The Penguin Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-59420-211-7. 278 pages.
The Manual of Detection is a decidedly odd but fun book. It doesn't fall into the sort of crime books I usually review here but it does have crime and detectives and it is great fun. The experience of reading it is similar to what I felt with The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien (pseud. of Brian O'Nolan). If you demand realism in your detective stories then you should give this one a pass.

In a nameless city where it has been raining for fourteen days, Charles Unwin is a clerk of twenty years for the Agency, a detective agency that occupies an entire high-rise office building. Unwin is the clerk for ace detective Travis Sivart. His job is to take the reports submitted by Sivart and document the case, remove the extraneous, integrate subsequent reports. He is proud of his ability to give names to the cases - The Three Deaths of Colonel Baker, The Oldest Murdered Man, The Man Who Stole November Twelfth.

Unwin has a morning ritual of going to the Central Terminal train station and observing the woman in the plaid coat who appears every morning at the same time waiting for someone to arrive who never does. One morning when Unwin has finally gained to courage to approach the woman he is intercepted by an Agency detective who tells him he has been promoted to detective and gives him a copy of The Manual of Detection, standard issue. Thinking it is a mistake, Unwin goes to his floor in the Agency where he finds the woman in the plaid coat occupying his desk and apparently now his clerk. A note directs him to his new watcher, Lamech, who Unwin finds strangled in his office. At a knock on the office door, Unwin panics and shoves Lamech under the desk and allows himself to mistaken for Lamech by the woman at the door, Vera Truesdale. She wants Sivart assigned to solve a personal mystery.

In his new office (formally occupied by Sivart), Unwin finds he has an efficient assistant named Emily Doppel who is also likely to fall into a deep sleep at unexpected times. He also receives his badge and gun. With his watcher dead, Unwin tells Emily that their first case is to find out what happened to Sivart. Looking for a place to start, they search the office, finding nothing. Unwin has a clerk's trick up his sleeve, though. Sivart's typewriter ribbon is fairly new and he and Emily are able to read the words Municipal Museum so that's where they will start. The museum is also the scene of one of Sivart's famous cases, The Oldest Murdered Man.

The story moves between reality and dream worlds. There are scenes too surreal to summarize, people who are not who they seem, people who can manipulate people's dreams, murderous (formally conjoined) twins, a crime syndicate based in a decaying carnival.

For me, this is a wonderful work of imagination. Berry is able to make an unreal world seem real with the detail and organization he applies to the story. I'm also a sucker for a mysterious organization and Unwin's exploration of the hidden departments within the Agency is most interesting and intriguing.

I recommend this book if you enjoy well constructed fantasy