As the third mystery novel in Steve Hockensmith’s HOLMES ON THE RANGE series, THE BLACK DOVE once again centers around two good-natured cowpoke siblings who go about “deducifying” just what happened. Now, before you think I’m poking fun at our commander in chief and get your knickers in a bunch (or get a smile on your face and a noddin’ to your head), don’t. This is how my boys Gustav and Otto Amlingmeyer “commence to conversating.”

The two brothers are second-generation German immigrants raised on the plains of Kansas, working as cattle drovers before being introduced to the literary wonders of Sherlock Holmes. Gustav – aka “Old Red” – and Otto – aka “Big Red” – decide to leave the range, head west and do some detecting work of their own.

This adventure drops the brothers into San Francisco – specifically, Chinatown. The pair – already ships out of water, what with Gustav still wearing his 10-gallon hat, Otto in a 10-ounce bowler and both sporting hair the color of a carrot – strolls into Chinatown on a bet.

With DOVE being a true-to-form mystery, I won’t spoil the fun, but rest assured, if you enjoy the genre seated in the style of Sherlock Holmes with some Charlie Chaplin thrown in, you’re gonna love this book. Old Red is the wise range cowhand who can track a chicken through a snowstorm, and puts his skills and keen sense of observation to work, just as his hero Holmes plied his trade. Big Red is your primary, Dr. Watson-ish narrator, and boy, does he like to jibber-jabber as they untwist the riddle that’s afoot.

I found Hockensmith’s novel to be very tactile. Chinatown in 1893 is as foreign a land to me as it is to Gustav and Otto, so it was a joy to watch them amble along those city streets. As the boys push through the death of one Dr. Chan, Hockensmith tantalizes you with a second internal story, by which a struggling Gustav is driven.

Hockensmith’s ability to poke fun at his characters throughout the tale kept me smiling and chuckling out loud. At one point, Big Red challenges Old Red’s detectifying skills and makes a bet with his brother. After laying out the rules of the bet, which seem straightforward but suspicious, Otto tells the reader, “Old Red gave me the kind of look you’d give a man offering to shake your hand after stepping from a particularly odiferous outhouse. But he didn’t say no.” That’s an image I could see burned into my brain, with a reluctance I fully understood.

Later in the tale, Gustav and Otto are left standing on the stoop of a sing-song house as they await permission to enter, their way being blocked by a very large Chinese hatchet man, literally carrying a hatchet. Otto likes to hear the sound of his own voice and lets the reader in on his personality: “Now, certain folks are heartbreakers, some break promises and others are ever breaking wind. Me? I’m an incurable breaker of silences.” Big Red proceeds to compliment the toughie on his black Chinese pajama-like outfit and questions him on where he could get one and do they come in different colors.

Along the way, the brothers receive help from some old friends and new acquaintances, and Otto gets his dandy new clothes rumpled a few times. The story fits together nicely as any good mystery should and it kept me pushing forward, deeper and deeper into the book, wanting to learn what had happened and whodunit.

If you’re a fan of the first two HOLMES ON THE RANGE novels, you won’t be disappointed, and if THE BLACK DOVE is your first foray into the series, you won’t feel lost. There are some references in the book to the predecessors, but as any good writer will, Hockensmith didn’t reveal too many details – just enough to make me go out and buy the other two so I could quench my curiosity and enjoy more time with the detectifying cowboys. –Bart Brunscheen

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• HOLMES ON THE RANGE by Steve Hockensmith
• ON THE WRONG TRACK by Steve Hockensmith