The Case of the Deadly Desperados is the first of the PK Pinkerton mysteries by Caroline Lawrence, best known for the Roman Mysteries.
My name is PK Pinkerton and before this day is over I will be dead.
From the very first we're involved in the thick of it with PK Pinkerton in the Wild West of the nineteeenth-century. The foster parents of Pinky are dead, scalped and apparently killed by Indians. Pinky, however, is no ordinary 12 year old, having skills in hunting and tracking, and it becomes evident that three men hunting for Pinky are responsible for killing Pinky's foster parents. Pinky's skills are great but Pinky also has a "thorn":
But here is my Problem: I cannot tell if a person's smile is genuine or false. I can only spot three emotions: happiness, fear and anger. And sometimes I even mix those up.
Pinky seems to have problems somewhere on the Asperberger's / Autism spectrum. Pinky's talents and hinderences coincide to make this a truly exciting book. Pinky can get out of tight corners with talents you wouldn't suspect, and yet is easily trapped when those of us with more conventional personalities can see the problem coming. This makes for a plot that is both character led (my favourite sort) and unpredictable.
Running from the deperados Pinky sets off for the "Satan's playground" and "vilest place on earth" Virginia City where Pinky immediately meets a "Soiled Dove" (the slang in this book is great - very evocative) and the adventures truly begin, as Pinky dodges the deperados and tries to protect the document that everyone seems to be after. Pinky has no idea who to trust and with the "thorn" often mis-judges character. Pinky's uncle is the detective Allan Pinkerton and Pinky tries to detect too "like Mr Bucket in Bleak House".
The narrative has a surface simplicity in the words of Pinky, but is actually subtle, complex and tricky as a snake. You may have noticed that I've avoided using a pronoun for Pinky. There's a good reason for this: I've no idea which pronoun would be right!
Watch Points:
Violence: it with begins the murder of Pinky's parents and their scalping is presented in modest detail. There is a torture scene where someone has a finger cut off by Whittlin’ Walt who hacks his victims to death little bit by little bit. There are shootings and fights and other moderate violence.
Death: as noted it begins with the deaths of Pinky's parents. Other characters are killed throughout the book.
Peril: Pinky's parents' deaths show the enormity of the danger from the start. Pinky learns about Whittlin’ Walt and exactly what he does (see violence, above) a bit later. The opening line shows Pinky waiting to die and there is the inevitable showdown to resolve the predicament at the end. Throughout Pinky is on the run.
Relationships: awareness of the facts of life is assumed. There are numerous "Soiled Doves" (prostitutes), and the complex circumstances of Pinky's birth are discussed.
Anything else: yes, drugs. Belle, the "Soiled Dove", is hooked on opium. Pinky has to visit an opium den where Belle is stoned out of her mind.
Overall: this a swift paced and sharply drawn piece of crime fiction dressed up as a glorious Western. There are lots of genres to discuss, the narration is stylishly done, and there is a wonderful cast of minor characters from Poker Face Jace to local news reporter Sam Clemens (yes, him). The setting is vivid with its evangelical Christians, and its prostitutes, gangsters, Chinese laundries, saloon bars, and card sharps and its evolving landscape of the new town and its silver mines slapped down in the scorching desert. The speech is great and I loved the slang: one could write paragraphs on "soiled dove" as a metaphor, and I learnt what you do to 'mark twain'. I loved it and I'm delighted that there is a sequel.
Other reviews and useful sites:
The author's blog is here, and she has a page on the slang used in this book here. Her book website is here.
There are reveiws on The Bookette, The New York Times, and The Telegraph, and this latter also has "reading notes" for a book club.
Comments