Here’s my 4 Star review of BLAKE’S RULE, one of the westerns he wrote for Sundown.
To begin with, here’s the blurb:
Blake’s rule has always been to do what’s right…not what’s easy.
Range detective Sam Blake is after cattle rustlers—but when a beautiful woman is accused of murdering her employer, he has to step in and see justice done. Miriam had her reasons for the brutal killing, and though she’s not talking, Blake understands there’s more to this crime than meets the eye.
When the local sheriff, James Fremont, asks Blake to spirit Miriam and her two children out of town before a lynch mob comes for her, he agrees. But Cyrus Diebler, the influential rancher who is intent on seeing her pay for her crime, is not about to be stopped. He will go to whatever lengths he must to see her dead, though it means putting his own family in harm’s way.
As Blake and Miriam stay one step ahead of the relentless Diebler and his deadly henchmen, a relationship begins to build between them. When Blake learns the real story behind the murder, and the dark secrets of Diebler’s motivation to see Miriam dead, he vows he will protect her and her children at all costs—even if it means his own life.
And here’s my review:
One reason J. R. Lindermuth’s
westerns are worth reading is that he always provides unusual twists to what is
a very familiar form. Detective Sam Blake arrives in a Colorado mountain town
on the trail of a wanted rustler. Unexpectedly he is caught up in the affairs
of Miriam, a mulatto women charged with murder and pursued by a racist lynch
mob. Given that ‘Blake’s Rule’ is do what’s right, not what’s easy, he comes to
her aid. Out-of-the-blue twists – the intervention of a swarm of bees, a train
wreck – keep things surprising in a brisk, entertaining novel. Recommended.
According
to Wikipedia, the first
official private detective agency was set up in 1833 in Paris by ex-soldier
and one-time criminal EUGENE FRANCOIS VIDOCQ. He set up a business that
involved hiring ex-convicts and criminals to carry out operations that the
police wouldn’t undertake.
I thought
John had made up the THIEL DETECTIVE AGENCY that Blake works for, but no, they
existed. This private detective agency was formed
by GEORGE H. THIEL, a former employee of the PINKERTON DETECTIVE AGENCY.
He set up Thiel to rival the Pinkertons but never equalled their fame or
prestige.
The Thiel Agency was involved in
infiltrating and breaking a number of labour union strikes in the United
States and Canada, as were the Pinkertons. One of the company's first employees
was JOHN F. FARLEY, a former U.S. Cavalry trooper. In 1885, Farley was
appointed manager of Thiel's Denver office, which Blake operates out of.
I’ve blogged about the Pinkerton
Agency elsewhere. To briefly highlight a few aspects about them:
They were established in the U. S. A.
by Scotsman ALLAN PINKERTON in 1850. At their peak ‘The Pinks’ were the
largest private law enforcement organisation in the world.
ALLAN PINKERTON with PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Notably, they hired women and minorities, a practice uncommon at the
time. They hired KATE WARNE, the first female detective we have
record of. By 1860 Pinkerton was so
impressed by her abilities he placed Warne in charge of his new Female
Detective Bureau.
Her most famous role was in the so-called ‘Baltimore Plot’ in February
1861, just before the outbreak of the American Civil War. Warne posed as a rich
southern lady visiting Baltimore in order to infiltrate social gatherings of
secessionist sympathisers. She discovered there was a plot to assassinate
President-elect ABRAHAM LINCOLN as his train passed through Baltimore. To
escape, Lincoln was forced to disguise himself as an invalid. Kate posed as his
brother and helped smuggle him off the train before the assassins
struck. It is said that Kate Warne didn’t sleep while providing a
bodyguard role for Lincoln, thus inspiring the Pinkertons motto: ‘we never
sleep.'
Suitably impressed, Lincoln hired ‘The Pinks’ for his personal security
during the Civil War.
In
the 1870s they were hired to deal with the MOLLY MAGUIRES, a secret society some
view as working to improve the lot of oppressed Irish coal miners and some damn
as a terrorist organization. Detective JAMES McPARLAND went undercover against
the Mollies in Pennsylvania. Partly as a result of his investigations, twenty suspected members of the Mollies were convicted
of murder and other crimes and were hung in 1877 and 1878.
JAMES McPARLAND
In a western context, from 1874 onwards ‘The Pinks’ began to pursue the so-called
James–Younger Gang in their home territory of Missouri. Dangerous work: JOSEPH WHICHER, an agent who
attempted to infiltrate the gang, was soon found killed. Another agent, CAPTAIN
LOUIS J. LULL was killed by two of the Youngers in a roadside gunfight on March
17, 1874. Before he died, Lull fatally shot JOHN YOUNGER.
ALLAN PINKERTON himself took on the
case as a personal vendetta. On the night of January 25, 1875, he staged a raid
on the home of JESSE JAMES that ended in tragedy. Detectives threw an incendiary
device into the house. It exploded, killing James's 8-year-old half-brother
ARCHIE. It also seriously injured Jesse’s mother, blowing off one of her arms.
This raid caused outrage and increased sympathy for the outlaws.
Also out
west some of the ‘Range Detectives’ the Pinkerton Agency hired included famed
man-hunters TOM HORN and CHARLIE SIRINGO.
CHARLIE SIRINGO
SIRINGO, a
Texas cowboy and author, joined ‘the Pinks’ in 1891. He began
operating undercover, a relatively new technique at the time, and
infiltrated gangs of robbers and rustlers, making more than 100 arrests. In the
late 1890s, posing as a gunman on the run from the law for murder, he
infiltrated BUTCH CASSIDY’s Wild Bunch.
Several members of the gang were captured or killed as a result of the
information he gathered, including KID CURRY, eventually killed in a shoot-out
in 1904.
KID CURRY
Detectives in the Old West have been represented by
– amongst others – the heroes of the TV series ‘THE WILD WILD WEST.’
ROSS MARTIN and ROBERT CONRAD in 'The Wild Wild West'
Kate Warne was played by MARTHA MacISAAC in the
Canadian TV series ‘The Pinkertons.’
The character played by KATHERINE WARREN in the excellent train-bound
1951 thriller ‘The Tall Target’ (about ‘The Baltimore Plot’) is clearly
based on Kate Warne.
‘A good western, a romance, and a mystery. The book is a short read, not
heavy, but very interesting.’
‘This
latest work from John Lindermuth is a fine Western in the traditional mold, but
with some intriguing twists and distinctions that make it a high cut above
average… there is plenty of violent action, tragedy, betrayal and retribution,
more than a few surprises, and some nice touches of romance. The characters… are
colorfully drawn and given genuine depth. Lindermuth's effortlessly smooth
prose moves along at a perfect pace, rich with historically accurate details
yet never at the cost of interfering with a riveting tale.’
