Wasn't sure if I'd like this or not-in general I agree with Rex Stout and feel someone benefitting from another author's characters is a vampire.
In this case, though, it was simply a passion of the character- he Liked Holmes like Wolfe likes orchids- so all in all I didn't find it too intrusive.

The cowboy jargon was a bit forced here and there-but the puzzle and characters were fun ( )

It was ok as a first book by the author. I will give the next one a go and then see how I feel. ( )

Some Sherlock Holmes-inspired cowboys do some deducifyin' and I had some good fun following along.

The Amlingmeyer brothers are the last survivors of their once-big family, so brawny "Big Red" Otto and his brother "Old Red" Gustav stick together as they travel the west picking up cowboy work wherever they can. They enjoy keeping an eye out for new editions of Harper's that contain the latest of Dr. Watson's accounts of his adventures with detective Sherlock Holmes, who Gustav admires so much that he takes his methods as a model. He might not be educated, but he's smart, and he plans to show it.

He gets his chance when some overseers from a notoriously awful ranch ask for seasonal hired help. Unfortunately the rules of the ranch don't provide a lot of leeway for poking around: the hands have to stay together within five miles of the "castle", the ostentatious big house with its bunk houses and barns, unless accompanied by one of the few old hands. Old Red's mystery goes from potential to present when the ranch manager gets trampled in a stampede and the ranch's British owners (who have a loose connection to one of Holmes's cases) show up for a surprise inspection soon after. The trampling might seem suspicious to Old Red, but it's a hard sell as a murder...but the body in the outhouse with a bullet in its brain is undeniable.

Hockensmith's fast-paced story is recounted to us by Big Red, the younger but bigger brother who is, for some reason, the only one of the two who can read and write. (I say "for some reason" because there's no given reason why he couldn't have taught the demonstrably intelligent Old Red to read and write as well. But hey, it's a nice wrinkle in the story.) He's got a sense of humor that's cowboy-rude and rough around the edges, and which brought a lot of levity to prevent this from becoming a dreary, gritty western. The case itself ranges far and wide, encompassing a clownish but sincere wanna-be cowboy, the classy Lady Clara, and her domineering father the Duke; a cannibalistic outlaw and some hairy hybrids on the loose; and a rowdy cast of groundling characters including a Swedish cook, the colorfully-nicknamed fellow ranch hands, and the Lady's gossipy maid.

It also, to its detriment, includes an unnecessarily albino antagonist (the albinism plays absolutely no role in the story, so it just perpetuates the association of albinism with bad guys), a few n-bombs, and some highly insensitive language about women and American Indians. The latter might be historically accurate, but they are also demonstrably unnecessary: Hockensmith several times has Big Red talk around foul language and rude comments with phrases to the effect of "I won't bother decent folk by repeating what exactly I heard", which are at baffling odds with those that are spelled out.

Anywho...

This was a fun and light romp, the kind that might not have been much of a mystery to me in the actual who-done-it, but which had plenty of slapstick action, rough-and-tumble talk, and side mysteries to keep me well entertained. The Amlingmeyer brothers are quite a pair, and I certainly enjoyed the way Sherlock Holmes was woven into this story only in reference more than I liked his presence in The Bughouse Affair. I won't go out of my way to pick up the sequels, but I'd happily pick one up if I found it a little free library or used book sale. ( )

cowboy sleuths in old west , Holmes actual detective

I admit to a weakness for Holmesian pastiches, and this is one of the better ones I've read. Who couldn't love cowboy detectives? ( )