The Black Dove (Fiction)
Steve Hockensmith
Categories: Book Reviews
By: William Garwood 03/01/2008
St. Martin’s Press, $23.95, Hardcover.
Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer and brother “Big Red” arrive in 1891 San Francisco, still honing to be sleuths in the By Jove-like mold of the towering Sherlock Holmes in this latest installment of the “Holmes on the Range” mystery series. Without the help of the local Pinkerton office, the brothers’ troubles redouble with the sudden blast of a pistol in “Big Red’s” face. When their Oriental assailant, a former friend, is murdered, they find themselves hunting answers through the murky world of Chinatown. Aided by the Southern Pacific’s beautiful and savvy detective Diana Corvus, the trio dodge a stealthy Tong gang’s hatchets to solve a murder and free the mysterious Black Dove, a lovely pawn in a tragic game with a near insoluble solution. This moody and dark tale resembles the work of another major Victorian mystery novelist, Wilkie Collins, yet it remains, as does all of Hockensmith’s fast-paced Western thrillers, eminently readable.
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