Steve Hockensmith, On the Wrong Track

On the Wrong Track

Steve Hockensmith

St. Martin's, March 2007, $23.95

ISBN 0312347812

In 1893, following the latest train robbery by the "Give-'em-Hell Boys", the Southern Pacific hires detectives Gustav "Old Red" and Otto "Big Red" Amlingmeyer to guard the latest shipment of gold. Riding the rails, the siblings are stunned when the head of baggage, handler Joe Pezullo falls from the moving train. Whereas Big Red insists it is not in their job description, Old Red decides to investigate the homicide.

Using the logic of his hero Sherlock Holmes, Old Red begins querying the passengers in the Pullman to see if he can find clues. He starts and finishes with sexy suffragist Diana Caveo; though he also talks with Dr. Chan and the Reds' peer cowboy detective Burl Lockhart, but learns little, except that Miss Caveo is a babe. He finds a snake inside the baggage car, two coffins and the King of the Hoboes "Numero Uno." The case remains illogical until they find Thornton's Boiler #2 saloon, where the Reds rescue Lockhart and Chan from drunken cowboys; then the investigation spins even further out of control.

Readers will appreciate the Reds' second amusing zany western Americana mystery (See HOLMES ON THE RANGE), as everything is afoot once Old Red applies his brand of Holmesian logic to the murder. The storyline is hilarious, with nothing from the late nineteenth century considered sacred, as lampooning the absurd is the norm. Fans of jocular 1890's whodunits will laugh alongside Big and Old Red as they guard the gold, investigate a murder, and cause havoc.