Have you discovered the Amlingmeyers?

Take one salty hard-nosed illiterate cowboy with one hulking charmer of a little brother, and throw them into the dusty Old West, complete with sheriffs, taverns, and ladies of ill repute. Oh, and add a whopping case of Sherlock Holmes-- or rather several cases, all to be solved with the cowpoke version of Holmesian deduction.

Gustav "Old Red" Amlingmeyer and his brother Otto "Little Red" Amlingmeyer are introduced in Steve Hockensmith's first book, Holmes on the Range. A little hard-up for cash, the two rootless cowboys take a job on a ranch, where the general manager is soon discovered unpleasantly dead after a stampede passes. Fortunately, Old Red has been inspired by Otto's reading of a Sherlock Holmes tale, and when more suspicious incidents occur, the brothers are on the case like fleas on a dawg. I mean dog.


Number two is called On the Wrong Track, and in it, the Amlingmeyers do a little "Orient Express". More precisely, Old Red tries out his "deducifyin'" in a professional capacity, when the brothers land a guard job on the Pacific Express railroad.

The Black Dove is number three, with the brothers delving into San Francisco's Chinatown to help an old friend; unfortunately, the old friend's gone up the flume (deader n' a doornail), and the brothers have to mix up with a bunch of hard cases to figure out what's what.

Hockensmith's latest effort, A Crack in the Lens, shows poor Old Red's detecting skills breaking down under the pressure of a true love that never had the chance to flourish, or even leave the cat house. Why, without Little Red to keep him on course, he'd probably have got his plow cleaned! (That means to git a thorough whippin', if you're wonderin'.)

Rassle yerself up some of these here books; they're fine as cream gravy (really good)! Click on the cover art to go directly to the books in our catalog.