Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon (2001) by Larry Millet
GoodReads meta-data is 404 pages rated 4.04 by 1552 litizens.
Genre: Sherlockiana
Verdict: Elemental.
In the dry summer pine forests of deepest Minnesota fire is an ever present danger compounded by the sparks flying from railroad trains owned by Robber Baron J. J. Hill. Meanwhile, Eugene Debs has been organising railway men into unions hostile to Hill. Trouble is brewing.
A new ingredient comes to this combustible mix when Hill begins to receive threatening letters signed by the Red Demon which promise ruin to the businessman. While having the character of blackmail threats, strangely the letters do not demand money. This is a new one for Hill.
When pursuing these letters his own trusted investigator disappears, Hill goes to the top of the tree by sending an agent to recruit Mr Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street, London SW. Hill offers a princely sum for Holmes’s services who he is more intrigued by the the situation than attracted by the dosh. He and Watson set sail for the new world and then take the train to the NorthWest frontier of St Paul.
There follows a lengthy game of cat-and-mouse in the later 19th Century woods of Minnesota with much detail about railroads, engines, tracks, switches, flying sparks and embers, trestles, telegraphs keys and posts, along with the axe men who live among the pines. Holmes and Watson pose as London Times journalists doing research for a feature piece on rough-hewn ways of life in the north woods. As if.
They discover a cast of characters among the rustics, which includes a retarded sheriff, a clever brothel madame, a prissy woodsman, a flannel-shirted thug, a skeptical newspaper editor, while Holmes and Watson consume vast American servings of food. It comes to a head when the summer drought makes a perfect fire storm.
The text has footnotes relating to the Holmes cannon, and the historic events upon which the story is based. The telling is all rather theatrical as though the book aspired to being a screen play and much of Holmes’s work seemed pointless to this reader. Still it is diverting.
This is the first of a series.