Many men were drifters in the Old West, but none were quite like brothers Otto “Big Red” and Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer. Because Old Red had a dream – to be just like Dr John Watson and his friend Sherlock Holmes. Old Red has become fascinated with the Holmes stories that his brother has been reading to him – Old Red may be smart, but he’s also illiterate – and it’s just possible that if Old Red writes about their adventures, maybe he can get them published…

Before their first appearance in the novel Holmes On The Range, the boys appeared in short stories in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. This collection features their first appearances, along with some more set in the gaps between the first few novels. So sit back and see how the boys’ detective skills began…

Why did I decide to read this? You may remember, once upon a time, I cited two books as inspiring me to start the blog – Geek Tragedy by Nev Fountain and Holmes On The Range. The series had, I thought, stopped in 2011 with World’s Greatest Sleuth!, but recently I discovered that Steve had returned to the series with The Double-A Detective Agency and Hunters Of The Dead. And there was a second collection of short stories. And there were two novellas. I have some catching up to do.

So I opened up my copy of The Double-A Detective Agency and the introduction listed the chronology up to that point… and I realised that I hadn’t reviewed this short story collection (or The Black Dove, for some reason). So I decided to go back to the beginning and re-read these.

And I’d forgotten how much I love this series. And I mean love. These stories are so much fun, with the humour coming almost entirely from the concept. The mysteries are played straight and while the short story format does mean that a couple of the tales are a little short on surprise twists, every single tale is an exquisite adventure and most of them are delightfully crafted mysteries.

I always find it hard to review short stories – sometimes I’ll do each tale one at a time, but that would involve stopping between each one and making notes and, quite frankly, I didn’t want to stop. I’ll be honest, it’s all I can do not to just plough back through the whole series right now.

I’m going to, by the way – more on that soon – but in the meantime, if you want to read something that might just make the top of your head fall off because you’ve been smiling so much, you really should check this collection out.