cover image The Wolf Hunt: A Tale of the Texas Badlands; A Derrick Miles Mystery

The Wolf Hunt: A Tale of the Texas Badlands; A Derrick Miles Mystery

Will Brandon. Five Star, $25.95 (308p) ISBN 978-1-4328-7759-0

This disappointing series launch from Brandon, the pen name of Barbara Brannon (the Paragraph Ranch series), transplants Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles to 1891 Texas. Derrick Miles, who has set up shop as a private detective in the States following a stint as an apprentice to Scotland Yard, is consulted by lawyer Wesley Barlow after the death of Sir Basil Wolverton, an expat Brit whom Barlow befriended. Wolverton was found dead near his ranch soon after becoming obsessed with the legend of a curse placed on the Wolverton family involving a monstrous canine. When Barlow examined the ground near his friend’s corpse, he spotted “the footprints of a gigantic... wolf!” Miles assigns Watsonian narrator Frank Hooper to protect Wolverton’s heir, and the rest of the story unfolds with few surprises for anyone familiar with the classic that inspired it. Brandon’s frequent use of the original’s language may strike some as more rip-off than homage. Readers looking for a better melding of Sherlock Holmes and the Wild West should seek out Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range series. (Apr.)