Although Arthur Conan Doyle died long ago, his creation known as Sherlock Holmes never will. The venerable detective continues to show up in new novels and stories every year, even splintering off into bizarre genre pastiches. And if Holmes can work within the slimy netherworld of H.P. Lovecraft (as in the 2003 anthology SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET), certainly he’d be at home in the Old West, right?
Darn straight, pardner. And while Holmes isn’t a character in Steve Hockensmith’s HOLMES ON THE RANGE, his influence permeates every page, always there, like cattle crap on a cowboy boot.
Now in paperback, this amazingly amiable mystery centers on two sibling punchers in Montana in the late 19th century – the Amlingmeyer brothers, aka Old Red and Big Red, the latter serving as narrator. They’re hired on as ranch hands at the Bar-VR, where things don’t quite seem on the up-and-up to them. Their suspicions are confirmed when the general manager turns up dead, presumably following a stampede, and an albino black man also expires, albeit inside a locked outhouse in a manner that looks like a suicide but stinks of murder.
Old Red, being a fan of the Holmes stories he reads in the papers – or rather, being illiterate, has Big Red read to him – can’t let the mysterious happenings remain mysterious, and with the reluctant blessing of his employer, turns into an amateur sleuth, with his brother as his makeshift Watson.
The premise has charm to burn, and so do the characters. The Amlingmeyer boys are most likable fellas to follow around for dirt-range detection, and Hockensmith has captured the feel-good Old West of Saturday matinees in Big Red’s authentic, aw-shucks style of narration. Good-natured and good-humored, it makes me look forward to the forthcoming sequel, ON THE WRONG TRACK.
If there’s a bone to pick – and ain’t there always? – it’s that the final solution doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. But the way I look at it, the mystery’s almost like a MacGuffin, as I derived pleasure simply from hanging out with the boys. If the reveal seems a bit underwhelming, I can’t say the ride wasn’t a blast nonetheless. In that aspect, it’s like going out for a night at the bar: Who cares what you’re drinking, so long as it gets you drunk? –Rod Lott
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