Holmes on the Range
The Holmes on the Range series, Book 1
Steve Hockensmith
Minotaur
Fiction, Humor/Mystery/Western
Themes: Country Tales, Cross-Genre, Diversity
****
Description
It's 1893, and the Amlingmeyer brothers - Otto and Gustav, better known as "Big Red" and "Old Red" for their fiery hair -
are looking for off-season work in Montana cattle country. As cowpokes, they've been up and down the prairies plying their
trade, but Old Red harbors secret aspirations. Ever since he heard the stories of the English detective Sherlock Holmes,
he's got it into his head that he, too, could be a great detective, even if he never went to school or learned to read. Big
Red, of course, has some doubts. Even if his big brother has the mind for deduction, where in the middle of nowhere is he
going to prove it?
While washing the trail dust from their mouths at the Hornet's Nest saloon in Mile City, the Amlingmeyer brothers stumble
into a job with a local ranch... one with a decidedly unfriendly foreman and some odd expectations. Instead of roping steers
and riding the range, the handful of new hires are set to work cleaning up the dilapidated grounds, warned never to wander
out of sight or mix with the other hired hands. Indeed, the crew are watched all day by decidedly unfriendly eyes. Big Red
has distinct misgivings about the position, for all that beggars can't be choosers, but Old Red is positively ecstatic: he
just knows there's something foul going on at the Cantlemere Ranch, and this is the closest to an actual case he's come
across. When the dapper general manager, Perkins, is found trampled to death after a storm, everyone's willing to write it
off as bad luck - except Old Red. With his large little brother in tow, he sets out to crack the case... not realizing just
how much trouble he's about to ride into.
Review
Sherlock pastiches can be tiresome and overplayed, particularly when it feels like the author just cut-and-pasted a
caricature of the great detective and his dogged companion into another setting. Holmes on the Range, on the other
hand, is more homage than pastiche. Gustav "Old Red" Amlingmeyer may have devoted himself to studying Sherlock Holmes's
methods via Doctor Watson's written accounts in Harper's Weekly magazines (in this iteration, Holmes and Watson
are real people, not fictional creations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), but he's very much his own personality, firmly rooted
in his own history. Despite having no formal schooling, he's determined to prove that he's more than just a lowly brute
laborer, and indeed shows himself to have a brilliant mind, if one that works in its own ways. Likewise, Otto "Big Red"
Amlingmeyer is no Watson. Though devoted to his last surviving family member, who taught him everything he knows about
cowpunching, he's not beyond clapping back at his brother, and isn't set up to be the bumbling fool that Watson was
sometimes reduced to in Holmes's adventures. The setting isn't a sanitized Old West, the kind seen in paintings or old TV
shows, but one full of unruly cattle and unruly cowboys, stinking outhouses and stinking bodies pounded to mush in the
Montana mud, classism and racism and other ways humans find to treat other humans worse than the pigs they slaughter for
sausages. By aiming to capture the spirit of Doyle's iconic characters rather than the strict letter, Hockensmith succeeds
where many others fail.
From the start, Old Red has suspicions about the ranch and its crew, but it's not until Perkins's body turns up that his
detective skills kick into high gear. Though he keeps some things to himself, he lets his brother in on a fair bit of his
reasoning, making Big Red more of a partner and less of a struggling tagalong. With logic, observation, and the instincts
born of a hard life on the frontier, not to mention prodigal tracking skills, the would-be detective starts piecing
together a picture that involves fishy hired hands, a suspiciously-timed visit by the English stakeholders, scandals
stretching from America to the old country, and even a subplot involving an escaped madman known as "Hungry Bob", a
notorious convicted cannibal who may or may not be implicated in crimes around the property. Big Red's narration has a
humorous streak, but also serious weight, bringing the distinctive characters to life. Along the way, the Amlingmeyers
learn the hard way that detective work isn't at all what they imagined it would be like from those Harper's
Weekly stories, much more complicated and much more dangerous. The action and intrigue ratchet up nicely through the
tale, with hardly any lulls along the way to a breakneck climax that sees many truths revealed, though at a cost neither
brother could've anticipated. This is a series I wouldn't mind following for at least another book, with a nice balance
of humor and mystery in a gritty Western setting.