"I'm
sure you have lots of stories about the Old West."
Edward
D. Hoch's The Ripper of Storyville and Other Ben Snow
Tales (1997) is the only
collection of short stories about his gunslinger character, Ben Snow,
who's always "a long
way from home," as he
travels from town to town, but everywhere he goes he's followed by
the ghost of the Wild West's most legendary gunfighter, Billy the Kid
– to whom he bears a resemblance.
Snow
is lightening quick on the draw and hailed from the State of New
Mexico, where Billy the Kid was reportedly shot by Sheriff Pat
Garrett, which convinced enough people that the outlaw had survived
and adopted the name Ben Snow. This makes him a magnet for all kinds
of problems. Everywhere he goes in the Old West, there are people who
either want to take a shot at "the ghost of Billy Kid"
or "hire the fasted gun in New Mexico."
So the series places the traditional detective story within the
framework of a Western and it worked like a charm.
I've
to note here that I'm not very knowledgeable, or well-read, where
Westerns are concerned, but, going by these fairly modern
incarnations of that genre, I can understand why horse-and-cowboy
tales were once as greedily consumed as the other popular forms of
genre-fiction – such as our beloved detective story and the
science-fiction genre.
According
to the introduction, this collection of the first fourteen stories in
the Ben Snow series "is really two books in one."
The
first seven stories appeared between 1961 and 1965 in the British and
American publications of The Saint Mystery Magazine, which are
supposed to be read with "a bit of tolerance for a young
writer," but these earlier stories are as good as the later
ones. After 1965, Snow rode off into the sunset and would not be seen
for another twenty years when Hoch resurrected the series for Ellery
Queen's Mystery Magazine. It would be a home for the wandering
gunslinger until his literary father passed away in 2008.
So,
now we got that out of the way, let's take a look at the short
stories that makes up this splendid collection of historical
mysteries, which all take place during the late 1800s and early
1900s!
"Frontier
Street" was the secondly published story in the series, originally
appearing in the May 1961 issue of The Saint Mystery Magazine
(hereafter, SMM), but was intended by Hoch to be the
series-opener – which is a mistake that has been corrected in this
volume. Ben Snow has been hanging around the titular street for the
pass two months, mostly enjoying complete obscurity, but then "the
power on Frontier Street," Len Antioch, summons him to the
Golden Swan. The gambling boss has gotten wise of the rumors
surrounding Snow's identity and wants to hire his gun to get rid of
the pesky deputy, Reilly, but his refusal places him a tight,
dangerous spot. A spot that's tightened, like a noose, when the
gambling boss is clubbed to death with a gun butt on the same day as
the hit on the deputy was issued.
This
is a pretty good story that only serves as an excellent introduction
to the character of Ben Snow, but also has a very decent plot that
plays on the least-likely-suspect gambit and how this character is
brought to heel is exactly what you'd expect from a Western. Snow
challenges the murderer to a showdown in the street with only a
single bullet left in the cylinder of his six-shooter, which he spins
to make it as dangerous as humanly possible. So he has no clue which
chamber holds that all important bullet. It's like Russian Roulette
for people who are bored with playing Russian Roulette! A solid
opening story of this fine collection of stories.
"The
Valley of Arrows" was the first story to be published in the
series, printed on the pages of the May 1961 publication of SMM, but
had originally been written as the second one and the plot might
explain why they were, initially, published out-of-order. It has a
relatively simple, but memorable, premise reminiscent of Robert
van Gulik's "The Night of the Tiger" from The Tiger and
the Monkey (1965). So it was probably picked by the magazine
editors as the series-opener, because it would leave a stronger
impression on their readers.
The
story begins with the arrival of Snow at Fort Arrowhead, "a city
in the making" or "a last outpost against the red man,"
where he came with a serious warning. Snow had come across
hoof-prints in the valley, "showing that someone from the fort
had met with two Navajos," which obviously was not a place
where a peace meeting or truce talk had taken place – suggesting
the potential presence of a traitor within the walls of the fort.
After his arrival, the body of the legendary commending officer of
the fort, Colonel Noakes, is found with "a Navajo arrow
protruding from the left side of his neck." However, this is
not even the beginning of their problems.
Snow
is part of a two-men truce mission, conducted under a white flag, to
offer the Colonel's body to the chieftain, Running Bear, in exchange
for the safety of the people at the fort. Only problem is that the
traitor has promised "the lives of one hundred men," which
ends the truce talks in an exciting horse-race back to the fort
that's followed by a full-scale siege of the place. So this is more
of a Western than a detective, but a very good and memorable one.
"Ghost
Town" was originally published in the September 1961 issue of SMM
and brings Snow to an abandoned, reputedly haunted, town in a valley,
called Raindeer, where he finds an ill-assorted group of people.
There's the apparent leader of the group, a priest, whose obviously
wearing a gun under his black suit and has two very mismatched
companions: an Indian dressed as a cowboy, but with a knife, instead
of a gun, on his belt and a foul-mouthed, tobacco-chewing old man
with a beard. Finally, there's a woman who fired a bullet at Snow and
tied him up for the night.
Unfortunately,
for the group, the place is living up to its reputation and one of
them is gruesomely murdered. The old bearded man is found "pinned
to the wall like some giant butterfly" with a harpoon and the
floor surrounding the body is soaking wet. As if some "creature
from the sea" had struck down a man in "the middle of the
desert." A story with a very enthralling, well executed
premise, with a mounting body-count that turned the ghost town into a
small graveyard, but Hoch did not neglect to drop a clue, or two,
that hinted at the truth. Such as how the murderer was able to strike
in dark places or the water-drenched floor. I liked it.
"The
Flying Man" appeared in the December 1961 issue of SMM and
the premise of the story showcased Hoch's sorely missed talent for
setting the stage.
Snow
has been spending time among the three-hundred odd citizens of
Twisted River, "a dried-up hole," which is one day visited
by a man in a wagon, Doc Robin, who calls himself The Flying Man. Doc
Robin has brought an amazing invention from the East Coast of the
United States: a contraption with a giant set of wings that is used
in big cities, like New York, to glide off buildings. He has even
brought newspaper articles with him to proof his claim and promises a
demonstration before taking one-hundred dollar orders from the town
folks with a ten buck down payment. But before the big demonstration,
Doc Robin approaches Snow with an offer to become his bodyguard and
ensure him a safe departure from the town (with the money). Snow
refuses the offer.
On
the following morning, the town had gathered to watch Doc Robin glide
down from the hill on his mechanical wings, but what they saw instead
was a man crashing down to earth. And the cause of the crash was a
well-aimed bullet. This fact makes the murder a borderline impossible
crime, because the shot could've only been made with a rifle and
nobody in the crowd was seen carrying a large, cumbersome rifle –
or even a simple sidearm. Hoch is daringly fair in dangling the
tell-tale clue in front of the reader and the fact that the victim
had approached another gunman with his offer provided the plot with a
solid motive. Plot-wise, this is easily the best Snow story from the
1960s period of the series.
 |
| Assassination of President McKinley |
"The
Man in the Alley" was printed in the April 1962 issue of SMM
and, story-wise, is arguably the most interesting entry in the series
for two reasons. One of them is that the plot actually deals with the
rumors that Snow is Billy the Kid and the other places him on the
scene of the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. I
can't say much else about the story except that the plot is a great
example, or recipe, of how fiction can be mixed with actual
historical events without having to take liberties with the latter
(see the final lines of the story).
"The
Ripper of Storyville" was originally published in the September
1962 issue of SMM and, according to the introduction, Cornell
Woolrich approached Hoch at a Mystery Writers of America cocktail
party to tell him personally how much "he admired the story"
- which, at the time, was considerable praise for a then still young
writer. And the compliment was more than deserved.
Snow
is hired by a dying Texan rancher and oil millionaire, Archer
Kinsman, whose daughter, Bess, ran away from home and ended up in the
red-light district of New Orleans, but Kinsman wants to make amends
before his time is up. Snow accepts the assignment and travels to the
Storyville, New Orleans, where the preparations of Mardi Gras are in
full swing. There is, however, a slight problem complicating his
task: a number of woman have been brutally murdered and the general
belief is that Jack the Ripper has come to the Americas. Initially, I
assumed to plot would prove to be very simple and transparent ("you
don't know what I've become"), but Snow uncovers a hidden
connection between all of the victims.
A
connection that had to be obliterated in order to obscure the
all-revealing motive behind a previous crime that fueled the string
of murders. This is one of those excellent serial-killer detective
stories in the same vein as Ellery Queen's A
Cat of Many Tails (1949).
"Snow
in Yucatan" was printed in the January 1965 edition of SMM
and marked the end of the first period in the series, which went into
dormancy until the mid-1980s.
Once
again, Snow was offered a big chunk of cash, two-thousand dollars, by
three ex-soldiers to murder a man, Wade Chancer, who's a thousand
miles away in Mexico. Chancer had served with the ex-soldiers under
Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba, but had deserted his brothers-in-arms and
good men had died as a consequence. So he has to pay with his own
life. Only problem is that he has fled to Mexico and made himself a
general with the ambition to take over the country. Or a large swath
of it. Chancer wants to use to the native population for this purpose
and appears to have a magical hold over the Indians, which becomes a
problem when the self-appointed general dies under inexplicable
circumstances.
The
story has a ton of local color and great story-telling, but the plot
is rather thin and easily seen through. You can easily guess the
source of Chancer's power over the natives and figured out how he
died based on the photographic clue, which immediately brought Rufus
King's A
Variety of Weapons (1943) to mind. So not a bad story, but
not particular great either.
"The
Vanished Steamboat" marked the resurrection of Ben Snow and made
his debut on the pages of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
(hereafter, EQMM) of May 1984, which also happens to be the
first full-blown impossible crime story of the series.
Snow
has been hanging around Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he has made
some good friends, such as a riverboat gambler, Eddie Abilene, but
Snow has to play detective again when a steamboat, known as River
Ridge, vanishes impossibly from a stretch of the Mississippi River –
as if it had suddenly ceased to exist between two ports. One of the
people aboard had been Abilene. So the old gunslinger accepts an
offer from the steamboat's owner to find out what happened to the
River Ridge and does some old-fashioned detective work to
reach the only correct conclusion, which even included a false
solution based on Conan Doyle's famous 1898 short story, "The Lost
Special."
Hoch
came up with a perfectly acceptable and believable explanation for
the impossibility of a vanishing steamboat, but one that most readers
will probably instinctively guess and the clues only serve as a
confirmation of your gut-feeling. A limited range of possibilities
will always be a weak spot of impossible crime stories that attempt
to make streets, houses, planes, trains or boats vanish into thin
air.
"Brothers
on the Beach" was published in the August 1984 issue of EQMM
and is another story that mixes actual history with fiction, but not
quite as successful as "The Man in the Alley."
Roderick
and Rudolph Claymore pay Snow to protect a stretch of private beach
at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where the Orville and Wilbur Wright
are planning to make test flight with their heavier-than-air flying
machine, which is going to attract a large crowd and the Claymore
brothers want Snow to shoo away any trespassers from their private
beach – which has something to with an archaeological discovery on
the beach. A discovery pertaining to the site of Sir Walter Raleigh's
Lost Colony of Roanoke.
So
there's enough material here for a good story, but the experiment of
the Wright brothers only served as background decoration and the plot
regarding the murder on the beach, and the archaeological angle, was
pretty basic at best. A decent enough story, but nothing more than
that.
"The
500 Hours of Dr. Wisdom" was published in the December 1984 issue
of EQMM and takes place early on in Snow's career as a
cowboy-detective, which can also be labeled as a borderline
impossible crime story.
Snow
arrives at a far-flung, sleepy town, called Waycliff Station, where
the only excitement appears to be the regular visitations of Dr.
Wisdom's medicine show. The patent medicine was a staple of the Old
West, but this time the charlatan in the covered wagon had something
genuinely interesting to sell: an extra hour in the day to spend as
they wished. Dr. Wisdom guarantees that time will stand still outside
of the town and resume again when the hour has drawn to a close,
which he demonstrates on the following Sunday. The only train that
day arrives at the station at noon, which is on schedule, but
according to all of the clocks in town the train was an hour late.
The town was given an "whole extra hour" that day!
I
loved this portion of the plot and was placed in the father into the
past on account of a historical event, in 1883, that made this
time-trick possible, but was less enthusiastic about the murder of
Dr. Wisdom and the sub-plot of a missing wad of cash – which
cribbed a horrendously bad trick from Ellery
Queen's The American Gun Mystery (1933). However, the
resolution to the case was well done and Snow is pretty much run out
of town after fatally shooting the murderer.
By
the way, Snow shoots and kills nearly two dozen people over the
course of only fourteen short stories.
"The
Trail of the Bells" was published in EQMM of April 1985 and
begins with Snow's discovery of a dying man by a water hole. The name
of the man is Tommy Gonzales, a half-Mexican gunman, who had been the
right-hand man of a masked outlaw, named "Poder," notorious for
robbing banks and stagecoaches all over the New Mexico territory –
culminating with the murder of a banker in Tosco. Snow happened to be
in town on that day and was hired as a one-man posse to bring the two
desperadoes to justice, but the last words spoken by the dying gunman
is to "listen to the bells" if wants to find Poder. This
dying clue leads Snow to a mission station, in San Bernardino, where
he has to figure out which of the priests is moonlighting as a bank
robber. What really makes this story memorable is the solution and
the deductive reasoning that brought Snow to that conclusion, which
evoked the works of both Ellery Queen and Victor Hugo.
"The
Phantom Stallion" was originally published in the October 1985
issue of EQMM and is a locked
room mystery in spirit of John
Dickson Carr, which naturally makes this a personal favorite of
mine, because you know me. :)
Snow
is hired as a temporarily ranch hand at the Six-Bar Ranch of Horace
Grant in West Texas. Grant is a broken man in his seventies and
confined to bed, following a fall from a horse, but his sons have
made life as pleasant as possible for their father. The bedroom is
cooled with an expensive, and early, model of an air-cooling device
(i.e. air conditioning) and from his window he can see the
construction of a new family home some distance away. However, the
man still has intense nightmares about being trampled by his now dead
stallion.
Otherwise,
everything seems pretty normal at the ranch and they even have a
healthy, long-standing rivalry with the owner of the neighboring
Running-W Ranch, Nathan Lee ("it's like the Civil War all over
again"). However, Snow quickly comes to the conclusion that not
everything is what it seems at the ranch and the illusion is
shattered when Grant is brutally beaten to death in his bedroom,
which had been securely latched from the inside – both the door and
the window. The earth beneath the window showed no traces of
footprints, but there was "a bloody horseshoe" imprinted
on the skull of the victim!
Hoch
cobbled together an excellent impossible crime story that made good
use of the situation at the ranch, the bed-ridden victim and the
air-cooling device, but also supplied a logical reason as to why the
bedroom had to be locked from the inside. The locked room here
actually function as a clue to the identity of the murderer. Same
goes for the murder weapon. So, yes, easily one of my favorites from
this collection.
"The
Sacramento Waxworks" was published in the March 1986 issue of EQMM
and finds Snow in the capacity of adviser to the new owner of a
waxwork theater, Seymour Dodge, who plans to add a section of famous,
and infamous, Western sheriffs and outlaws – on which he needs
advice from an actual cowboy. There is, of course, a darker plot
behind all of this, which could very well have placed a noose around
Snow's neck. And that's about all that can be said about this fun,
but minor, story in the series.
Finally,
we come to the last story in this collection, "The Only Tree in
Tasco," which originally appeared in the October 1986 issue of EQMM
and has Snow arriving in town when they town folks were preparing "the only tree in Tasco for hanging."
Pedro
Mapimi, a Mexican, had been tried and convicted of murdering a local
banker by nearly cutting his heart out of his chest, but trial had
been a quick one and the presiding judge was the victim's son – who
had ignored the alibi offered by the accused and backed up by a
witness. So the wandering gunslinger takes upon himself to proof that
the man had been innocently convicted and tries to delay the hanging
by dynamiting the tree, which only slows down the sheriff's
determination to have the hanging down before too long. So the only
option left is to find the real murderer and the peculiarity of the
wound proves to be a dead giveaway.
This
is where the story began to bother me: long, long ago, I've seen this
exact same story play-out in a TV-series or movie, but can't for the
life of me remember the title of the series or movie in question.
However, I'm absolutely sure I have seen that wound-trick, in
combination with a small town setting, before on the small screen.
Anyway,
The Ripper of Storyville and Other Ben Snow Tales is easily
one of my favorite short story collections by Hoch. The quality of
all fourteen stories is not only consistent throughout, but of a high
caliber without a single dud among them. Sure, there are one or two
minor stories, but they hardly qualify as bad or even mediocre. So I
really hope we can look forward, in the hopefully not so distant
future, to a second collection of Ben Snow stories, because it has
been twenty years since this one was published. I believe there are
more than enough stories left to fill out one or two additional
volumes.
Well,
this review has gone on long enough, like all my short story reviews,
but I can tell you that the next one will probably be of a short
novel, or novella, in the same Western framework as these stories. It
might even have an impossible crime sub-plot, but we'll both see how
that pans out in my next post. So stay tuned!
The
fact that Konrad was shot to death makes his disappearance from the
tower room a full-fledged impossible crime. One way or another,
either he had left the room and was murdered elsewhere or his was
killed there and his murdered had left the room, but either way they
had to pass through a door that was blocked from the inside by a
heavy cabinet – which proved to be practically impossible to move,
or manipulate, from the outside. Something that was painfully
demonstrated when Coe's hand got stuck in between the doorpost and
blocked door during one of his tests.
