Riding the Rails

If I were not before the bar

Something else I’d like to be

If I were not a barr-is-ter

An engine driver me!

— John Cleese, Monty Python’s Flying Circus

The last time we saw Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer and his brother, Otto “Big Red” Amlingmeyer, they had just solved a major mystery on a ranch, which got started with the apparently-accidental death of a supervisor. All this was chronicled in the wonderful book Holmes on the Range, a book where elements of a classic Western went toe-to-toe with elements of a classic mystery. The result was not one genre beating out the other, but a solid blend of the two. Now we’re back with On the Wrong Track.

The time is 1893 and Old Red has got it in mind to become a Pinkerton agent. Unfortunately, he and his brother go from town to town only to meet with the same scepticism and mockery. But at long last they seem to have gotten their lucky break—sort of. See, it’s complicated, but as cowboys, Big Red and Old Red are none too fond of the railway companies. So their feelings are somewhat mixed when they at long last get hired as detectives for the Southern Pacific Railway company. It’s particularly surprising how insistent Old Red is on the job—he even sells their horses!—since he’d rather ride the trail than the railway even if trains could get him to his destination in a fraction of the time.

Data, data, data!

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

— Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia

If you read this blog regularly, you may have inferred one thing about me: I absolutely adore Westerns. One of my favourite movies of all-time is John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, starring Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, and Andy Devine (amongst others). It is, in my mind at least, as close as you can get to the perfect movie: plenty of action and suspense, just the right touch of comic relief from Devine, a truly frightening villain, and complex characters that you get to care for. There’s also a powerful sense of nostalgic regret, which may be one of the reasons the movie was filmed in black-and-white…

Unfortunately, it’s hardly likely that I’ll be able to find some way of sneaking in a proper review of a “pure” Western like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. But what’s the next best thing? Why, mystery/Western crossovers, of course! Because if you combine a murder mystery with cowboys, I’d like two subscriptions, please. I’ve reviewed such books in the past: William DeAndrea was en route to starting an excellent series in this vein starring Lobo Blacke and Quinn Booker, but his untimely death deprived us of more of their adventures. This is where Steve Hockensmith comes into play.