Kate’s 2¢: “The black dove” by Steve Hockensmith

“The black dove” by Steve Hockensmith

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   This was a cartridge that the NLS randomly sent to me. When I started to listen to it, I thought there was no way I wanted to finish the story. Robert Sams lazy speech really turned me off; then, I realized that I needed to speed up the speech to get it to sound right. Suddenly, the slow, but clear western drawl of Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer and his brother Big Red Amlingmeyer made a whole lot more sense. I finished the book.

   There was more strong language, violence, and nastiness than the NLS blurb let on; however, there was also a lot of humor as the two brothers interacted with each other, interjecting Sherlock Homes’ quotes,  and the weird events that happened to them. I ended up enjoying the story. I even liked the ending…sort of.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Steve Hockensmith (born August 17, 1968) is an American author. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He currently lives in California’s bay area with his wife, two children, and pet dog.[1]

Hockensmith is the author of the Holmes on the Range mystery series. The first book in the series, Holmes on the Range (published in 2006), was a finalist for the Edgar, Shamus[2] and Anthony Awards for Best First Novel.

Several of Hockensmith’s short stories have been nominated for awards in the mystery field. He won the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Derringer Award for “Erie’s Last Day,” published in the May 2000 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (AHMM). Two subsequent Larry Erie stories, “Tricks” (AHMM, August 2004) and “The Big Road” (AHMM, May 2005), were finalists for the Shamus Award for Best Short Story from the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA). “The Big Road” was also nominated for the Anthony and Barry Awards.[3] More recently, a Big Red/Old Red story, “Dear Dr. Watson” (published in the February 2007 EQMM), was a finalist for the Anthony Award.

Hockensmith authored the third book in the Quirk Classics series, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, in 2010, as well as its sequel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After in 2011[4]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The black dove DB67580

Hockensmith, Steve. Reading time: 10 hours, 23 minutes.

Read by Robert Sams. A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.

Historical mystery fiction

Western Stories

San Francisco, 1890s. Following a brief but disastrous stint as railway police, unemployed detective Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer and his brother Big Red venture into the seedy underworld of Chinatown’s opium dens and brothels. The siblings seek a beautiful–and elusive–woman in connection with a murder. Strong language. 2008.