Brothers Gustav “Old Red” and Otto “Big Red” Amlingmeyer, cowboys/amateur detectives in the 1890s Old West, were first introduced to readers in Holmes on the Range in 2007. The Double-A Western Detective Agency, the long-awaited sixth entry in the series, finds Sherlock Holmes disciple Gustav and Watson-esque brother/story narrator Otto finally realizing their dream come true—working as bona fide detectives under the banner of the Double-A Western Detective Agency.
Along with partner, and source of funds, Colonel C. Kermit Crowe and his daughter, Diana, both formerly of the Southern Pacific Railroad Police, the Amlingmeyers have set up shop in Ogden, Utah, ready to tackle all cases. Just one problem: no paying cases. Yet. Just as a frustrated Gustav is ready to charge off to Idaho to handle a case gratis, Col. Crowe manages to drum up a paying opportunity in DeBarge, New Mexico—catching cattle rustlers. Though Gustav would prefer the genuine mystery presented by the Idaho case, he is finally persuaded to follow the money for the longterm good of the agency. To protect his investment, Col. Crowe sends Diana along to help/supervise on the case.
The trio has barely entered town when it becomes clear things are more complicated in DeBarge than anticipated. Far more than a matter of dealing with a few cattle rustlers, the Double-A gang finds themselves in the middle of both a full-on range war as well as a town literally divided—the more well-to-do white townspeople and business are on one side of the town’s only street, with “mirror” business run by Mexicans and the more rough-and-tumble “nesters” on the other side.
When a prominent citizen of the town is murdered under the cover of darkness, chaos and acrimony ensue, with the townspeople digging in along their preexisting lines of division.
Exhausted and panicked though they were, the townsfolk had still instinctively clustered up neighbor beside neighbor, I noticed. To the west, what faces were visible through the soot were every color a man could have, while to the east every inch of skin was pure white. Just like that, DeBarge had divided itself again.
Thrust into the position of not only solving a murder, Gustav and crew find themselves saddled with the responsibility of preventing an entire town from burning itself to the ground as tempers flare and tension mounts, both sides ready to do whatever it takes to bring “the other” to justice.
Though the sixth entry in the series, author Steve Hockensmith has taken the Amlingmeyers back to their roots in The Double-A Western Detective Agency in such a way that makes it easy for new readers to jump in and hit the ground running. (Though you’ll undoubtedly want to go back and read the entire series once you do.) As with all installments in the Holmes on the Range series, and indeed all of Hockensmith’s writing, The Double-A Western Detective Agency presents an exquisite blend of scene setting (this is classic Old West, complete with cattle rustlers, a two-horse dusty town, whiskey-soaked saloons, and guns-drawn standoffs), plot (twists and turns aplenty, along with a colorful cast not always clearly identifiable as friend or foe), pacing (once the trio hits town things progress like a runaway freight train) and humor (narrator Otto’s wry observations are peppered throughout, and even the chapter titles are things of humorous beauty in and of themselves). All of which makes following the adventures of the Amlingmeyer brothers an absolute delight.
If you like mysteries, especially of the Sherlock Holmes variety, or Westerns, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of The Double-A Western Detective Agency and get to deducifyin’ and detectin’ alongside Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer.
The Double-A Western Detective Agency is available in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.
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