Patrick Welch, The Casebook of Doakes and Haig

The Casebook of Doakes and Haig

Patrick Welch

Twilight Times books, Jun 2004, $15.50, 188 pp.

ISBN: 1931201145

"A Small Matter of Murder". Sean Doakes sells the delicious sweetener cooked by Haig the leprechaun to pleased customers. They leave the kitchen and the shop to investigate what happened to likeable client Mrs. McLeary, who was recently murdered.

"Savage Customs". In 1953 Clarice Stills hires Doakes and Haig, Criminal Consultants, to prove that Motimwa, the American colonies "savage" is innocent of the charges of murder with a tomahawk.

"Murderous Obligations". Alosyius Leek hires Doakes and Haig to solve a murder that has not yet occurred as the frightened client expects a leprechaun to kill him.

"Fatal Impressions". Margaret Thalan hires the duo to investigate who murdered her banker husband in a highly publicized case several months ago. Margaret refuses to believes that their son, though estranged from his father, would kill him as the police insist happened.

"Cat's Moon Rising". Widow Sylvia Moritz comes to the shop to hire the pair to recover her catnapped Egyptian Mau, Cleopatra. Haig becomes concerned that Maus has been cat-abducted as he knows what the repercussions mean.

"Golden Talons". Inspector Amberlee who the sleuths (at least Doakes) met on the "savage" case asks the duo to help the crown by going to the United Native Nations based on a request from Smythe (the "savage") to find The Lost City of Gold. Doakes and Haig cross the Atlantic to New Amsterdam on the fastest transportation known, a wind wooden ship that takes two weeks. In the colonies, they begin the quest.

These five short stories and one novella are delightful tales that combine mystery with fantasy in an alternate universe while readers meet Sean and that seventy-year old leprechaun Doakes.

Harriet Klausner