“Fast-paced,” “action-packed,” and “breathlessly exciting” are adjectival terms you expect to use when describing a good spy thriller. They all apply to Tim Stevens’ debut novel, Ratcatcher. I discover, however, that it’s possible to take those virtues too far.

The term “Ratcatchers,” we are told, is what English spies call a top-secret, independent group that works to apprehend and eliminate secret agents who’ve gone bad. The hero of the book, John Purkiss, was an English agent until the murder of his beloved fiancée, a fellow agent named Claire. Claire was killed by yet another agent named Fallon, who was convicted of her murder. Then Purkiss left the service and was recruited as a Ratcatcher.

As the story opens Purkiss learns that Fallon has been given early release from prison, and has now been reported in Estonia. Purkiss is sent there to investigate, and soon discovers evidence of a conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism during an upcoming visit by the Russian president.

I can’t deny that Ratcatcher is an exciting book. My problem with it is that it reads more like a Sylvester Stallone movie than a novel. Because of the very nature of cinema, an audience will swallow a lot of improbabilities that the more contemplative environment of reading makes it harder to accept. Just as in a movie, the principal characters here suffer severe, repeated physical trauma without much loss of effective physical function. They mostly get shot at by bad shots. And their own guns never seem to run out of bullets.

I must admit, though, that there were a couple very neat plot twists at the end. And the prose itself, both dialogue and exposition, was professional.

Ratcatcher is worth reading, purely for entertainment. Cautions for language and violence. The sexual content was fairly mild.

The Western mystery story is not as rare a phenomenon as you might think. The conventions of the mystery transfer pretty well to the Wild West, and many famous mystery writers cranked out westerns as well, back in the days when you could make a living writing for the pulps.

Contemporary author James D. Best carries on this tradition with his Steve Dancy stories. Steve is a former gun shop owner from New York City, transferred to the west where, although his primary concern is business, he has made a reputation as a gunman. I thought this approach added freshness to the whole enterprise. We often forget that cowboys shared a country and a time with men like Thomas Edison and Cornelius Vanderbilt, but Steve Dancy straddles both worlds.

Murder at Thumb Butte starts in Carson City, Nevada, where Steve and his friend Jeff Sharp are arguing about where to go next. Steve wants badly to go to Prescott, Arizona. There’s a man in Prescott who has some stock certificates, worthless in themselves, which could cause difficulty for Steve in a project he’s contemplating—using Tom Edison’s electric light to illuminate mines. Unfortunately, Jeff already knows this man, who once slandered him in the vilest way possible. When they get to Prescott, Jeff loses little time in punching his old enemy and telling him he’ll kill him next time he sees him. When the man is found murdered the next morning out near Thumb Butte, with Jeff’s own rifle lying next to the body, he’s arrested for the murder by Constable Virgil Earp, and Steve has to set his mind to clearing his friend. With the help of another friend, Pinkerton agent Joseph McAllen, who comes to town with his daughter Maggie and a married couple who are also operatives, he sets about that project. Continue reading Murder at Thumb Butte, by James D. Best →