The Double AAs, plus the boss's daughter, are off to stop a range war. On arrival, they seem to be on the wrong side. Switching sides is difficult but they manage. Overwhelmed at first but the cavalry shows up in various guises and they win the day and the war. One of the more interesting Holmesian pastiches with quite likable characters in the then Wild West. ( )

Finished Steve Hockensmith's The Double-A Western Detective Agency: A Holmes on the Range Mystery last night. While it's been a stretch since the last book, I'm delighted to find that Gustav (Old Red) and Otto (Big Red) Amlingmeyer have lost none of their charm during the interim. The Boys are back in town! Literally! Well, 'a' town, and they aren't really 'back', since this is their first visit, but you get the idea. Semantics aside, I'm really happy to have them back.

If you aren't familiar with the Amlingmeyer boys, the basic series premise is that you've got a couple of youngish, red-haired cowboy brothers trying to make their way in the world of 1890s America, when they come across these stories about a certain consulting detective in The Strand Magazine, and Old Red, an illiterate, gets his brother to read them to him, and realizes he's got some pretty good observational and deducifyin' skills himself. Brother Otto turns out to have a flair for writing stories. Any of this sounding familiar? Adventures ensue that eventually lead up to them joining a detective agency and the new book is their first big case for the Double-A Detective Agency. They, and the boss's daughter, head off to a small town, ostensibly hired by a cattle baron to work against rustler's, to find a town literally divided along racial lines. From there I won't say more about the plot, except that it becomes the literary equivalent of a Howard Hawks western - I'm looking at you, Rio Bravo - and it's just a rollicking good time right through to a satisfying end. It's all told in Hockensmith's deceptively breezy and chatty style, masking some biting observations about heavy social issues, and it's never anything less than a fun read. Looking forward to the next one! ( )

It's been a long wait for this newest book in the Holmes on the Range series, and it couldn't come at a better time. I get more enjoyment from Old Red and Big Red Amlingmeyer than I do Conan Doyle's Holmes and Watson. (Hopefully, the Sherlockian purists won't invite me to a necktie party for saying that!)

This time around, Old Red is in a funk because Holmes has taken a header off Reichenbach Falls, so this case in New Mexico is just what he needs. When they arrive in DeBarge, they immediately know something's not right. The town is sharply divided along racial lines: all the white folk and their businesses are on one side of the main street, and everyone else is on the other. And it certainly doesn't set well when they learn that they've been hired to fight in a range war. As Sheriff Alf Hinkle tells them, "Where there's beeves, there's thieves." Old Red and Big Red still don't want any part of that, so it's a good thing that there is soon a mystery for them to solve. It's a good one, too-- one that I didn't figure out. I loved seeing how the Amlingmeyers managed to put things to rights.

Between the mystery that stumped me, the new characters, and the Amlingmeyers' new circumstances, there's a lot to enjoy in The Double-A Western Detective Agency-- and I haven't even mentioned Hockensmith's talent in giving a real feel for the Old West OR his wonderful sense of humor. These books are just plain fun, and I can't wait for the next one. ( )