In the Pinks

You may not have become aware of this development yet, but my latest column for the Kirkus Reviews Web site--a critique of Loren D. Estleman’s new “celebrity sleuths” mystery, Ragtime Cowboys (Forge)--was posted this morning.

As I explain in that piece, Estleman’s short Western/detective adventure finds a couple of former Pinkerton operatives, “cowboy detective” Charles Siringo and the younger Dashiell Hammett, being hired in 1921 by sometime lawman Wyatt Earp to find his stolen filly. However, the case “rapidly expands into something much more complicated and engagingly treacherous.” Ragtime Cowboys is a breezy, delightful romp that allows Estleman to fill the mouths of his unlikely pair of protagonists with some very clever lines.

You’ll find the finished column here.