A Visit With Steve Hockensmith, Part One
Steve Hockensmith
Like his characters “Old Red” and “Big Red” Amlingmeyer, Steve Hockensmith has covered a lot of ground in a short time. A regular contributor to both Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Hockensmith has earned a good many awards and award nominations since he turned to mystery writing a mere decade ago. Most prominently, Holmes On the Range, a mystery novel set in the Old West, was a finalist for the 2007 Edgar, Anthony, and Shamus Awards in the Best First Novel Category. Two more novels followed in succession, On the Wrong Track, and The Black Dove (reviewed here last week). This summer, Hockensmith’s new book, The Crack in the Lens, will be released from St. Martin’s.
Steve is a generous writer with a terrific sense of humor, and I’m happy to welcome him to these pages.
MB: How did Holmes on the Range come about? Did you always intend for it to become a book series or did you just have a short story or two in mind?
SH: In the beginning, I wasn’t thinking books, but I was thinking series. I’d established a recurring character in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine (couch potato P.I. Larry Erie), and I wanted to do the same thing in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. So the first story with the guys, “Dear Mr. Holmes,” was specifically designed to set up sequels. Fortunately, Janet Hutchings at EQMM bought it, then kept on buying more Big Red/Old Red stories as they came her way. Et voilà — a series was born. A couple years later, when I decided to take a stab at a book series, it seemed obvious what I should try first. I liked the Erie stories I’d been doing for AHMM, but the character didn’t lend himself to the novel treatment — at least not in a series. I mean, he’s a depressed old fart Hoosier who’d rather spend his last days watching Turner Classic Movies than solving mysteries. Not exactly blockbuster material. But Holmes-worshipping cowboys? That had some potential.
MB: The first book finds a springboard in the “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor,” while its two sequels rely slightly less on the Holmes canon. Will future books or stories be more or less influenced by Sherlock Holmes?
SH: Assuming the series continues indefinitely, it’ll be a long, long time before any of the books are as overtly tied to the canon as Holmes on the Range. I just don’t think you can have the guys bump into folks who knew Holmes every time out. The series has to stand on its own. Now, having said that, the Holmesian influence will always be there. Holmes will be quoted, emulated, lampooned (by Big Red, not Old Red) in every book. And elements from the canon will creep in, from time to time. For instance, the book I’m working on now, number five in the series, has a huge Easter egg for Sherlockians. It’s something casual readers probably won’t pick up on at all, but folks in the know should chuckle.
MB: For western fans, the brothers bring to mind Charlie Siringo, the original cowboy detective. Are you familiar with Siringo?
Absolutely! In fact, there’s a copy of A Cowboy Detective on the shelf directly above my computer monitor. (Beside it: The Cowboy Dictionary, Cowboy Lingo, The Cowboy Encyclopedia, the Time-Life Old West collection, Leslie Klinger’s New Annotated Sherlock Holmes and lots more stuff I consult constantly.)
Back to your question — there’s a little Charlie Siringo in Old Red, and a lot of him in Burl Lockhart, the embittered Pinkerton “range detective” in On the Wrong Track. I’ve actually got an idea that would bring Siringo and the Amlingmeyers together. We’ll see if I ever get around to it.
MB: Gustav and Otto’s relationship rings exceptionally true to life. Do you have personal experience with siblings to draw from?
SH: I’m the youngest of two brothers, so the parallel between me and Otto/Big Red is pretty obvious. But I should point out that my brother’s nothing like Gustav/Old Red, and he and I don’t fuss’n’feud like the Amlingmeyers do. We’re actually pretty similar, as opposed to being yin and yang like Big Red and Old Red. To get all dime store Freud for a second, I think the guys don’t represent me and my brother so much as the two sides of myself: the one that’s jokey and outgoing (when it needs to be) and the one that’s introverted and self-conscious and writerly. I will say, though — I feel much closer to Otto than Gustav. I never wonder how Big Red’s going to react in a given situation, but Old Red…? That ornery little so-and-so can be a bitch to figure out sometimes.
MB: The HOTR series is set in the Old West. While I’d put in the mystery genre first, it also fits in the western. Have any western writers influenced you?
SH: Not the writers you might think of. I’ve never read Louis L’Amour or Max Brand, and I probably shouldn’t admit this publicly, but I tried to read Riders of the Purple Sage once and it totally defeated me. I think I got through four pages before I gave up on it. Which I don’t say to knock Zane Grey. His style just doesn’t suit me.
I have read Westerns by contemporary writers I like — Elmore Leonard, Bill Crider, Ed Gorman, Robert Randisi, Loren Estleman. But I couldn’t call any of them “influences.” I was already pretty formed as a writer by the time I got to them.
But! There are voices from the genre that helped shape my sensibility. I love love love Little Big Man, both the novel and the film, and if you listen/read closely, I think you’ll find some of the cadences of the narration in what I do. I’d probably watched the movie four or five times by the time I was out of high school, and that kind of exposure at a young age leaves its mark. Ditto for Rio Bravo, Rio Lobo and El Dorado, all of which I saw over and over as a kid. That they’re all basically the same movie, that they were all written by Leigh Brackett, and that they all focus on feuding, mismatched, yet utterly loyal men facing danger together in the Old West…well, make of that what you will.
MB: You’ve continued to write HOTR shorts; “Dear Dr. Watson” and “Greetings from Purgatory” are recent entries published in EQMM. Any chance for a collection?
SH: I certainly hope so — I’d love to see all those stories gathered together in one place. I’m not sure St. Martin’s would be interested in a collection, though. Short fiction’s a tough sell, and I might not be a big enough name to make it worth the effort, from their perspective. We’ll see. If the series really has legs, I’m sure I’ll pitch the idea to my editor at St. Martin’s eventually. And if the series doesn’t have legs…well, then I suppose the question’s moot, because no one’ll want to read the thing anyway!
Next in Part Two: The writing process, the new book, and more! Tune in Thursday!