The Black Dove in Steve Hockensmith's novel refers to a missing Chinese prostitute who was the last person to see a murder victim alive.
If nothing else I can assure you that the sentence you just read is far and away more somber than anything in the book itself.
The Black Dove is a follow up of Holmes on the Range, an Edgar award nominee. Gus and Otto Amlingmeyer are brothers. Gus, an illiterate cowhand, has developed a fondness for the 'real-life' adventures of Sherlock Holmes and has a knack for 'deducifying' himself. Otto, the narrator of the book, is big and quick with his fists and the puns. Together they find themselves in Chinatown in the latter stages of the 19th century, investigating the murder of a mutual aquaintance.
The book is more concerned with making you laugh than think, with the actual mystery occupying 10% of the work at best. The rest of the space is devoted to comedic adventures that sometimes slip into a dull Perils of Pauline mode out of sheer redundancy.
Really, how many times a day can someone find themselves surrounded by hatchet weilding Chinamen?
The book accomplishes its task with aplomb and I have to admit the ending, which was tidy if unexpectedly bleak, wrapped things up quite nicely.
The only negative I see? Hockensmith's book, in tone and structure, eerily mirrors a mystery (well, 4 chapters of one) I wrote back in '96. That annoyed me.
I hate people who finish what they start.
3.0 out of 4, 75 out of 100.
1 comment:
I hate people who finish what they start??? LOL
Welllllll, you'd better get busy!
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