Steve Hockensmith has written two very different mystery series that have garnered awards as well as a loyal fan base.

In the first, two cowboy brothers roam the wild West of the 1890s,  saddled up Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson amidst the tumbleweed, solving murders as they ride the range.

In the second, a reformed con artist inherits her mother’s tarot card salon and finds lots of dirty secrets come with the bequest.

You can listen on the link above or on iTunes or Stitcher.

Keep reading to hear what inspired Steve to set Sherlock Holmes in the West and why he like mysteries more than thrillers.

Read on for full show notes and a transcript of the conversation.

Show Notes Summary

In this interview you'll discover:

When Steve first decided the detective Sherlock Holmes was his buddy.

What inspired his idea of a Gustav as a cowboy Sherlock Holmes.

Why - like Bruce S - he loves working class heroes.

The reason his "cosy" mysteries aren't all that cosy.

Why he enjoys mysteries more than thrillers.

Steve's binge reading habits: youthful embarrassments and what's exciting him now.

For more detail, a full transcript follows:  A "close as" rendering of our full conversation.

Steve can be found at www.stevehockensmith.com

And on Facebook and Twitter

https://www.facebook.com/steve.hockensmith.7

Twitter @MrHockensmith

And now to Steve:  Hello there Steve, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us.

In your series Holmes on the Range you put two fairly hard scrabble cowboy brothers with a tragic past into slapstick situations where they manage to keep their heads when all around them are losing theirs. Gustav's obsession for the great detective's deductive reasoning methods shines through all the fun and games and I’m wondering . . .

Tell me, was there ONCE UPON A TIME when you as a young boy or young man just loved Sherlock Holmes?

Oh yes absolutely. I mean  there was a time when I didn't love Sherlock Holmes, which didn't mean I hated him. He was always there in the background, I would encounter him in pop culture, and  he seemed fine, but it wasn't until I got to the age of about 12 that I realised my Dad was a very big Sherlock Holmes fan.

I guess maybe it's not until you're about 12 years old that you pay attention to what your parents think about anything other than when it's time to come in and eat. So I became aware of the fact that my Dad had this book on his mantelpiece The Complete Sherlock Holmes although you couldn't read the spine when it was up on the shelf because he read it every year and it was taped together with duct tape.

So it was like "Oh look there's a Sherlock Holmes book there and Dad is really into it."  I think I had a book report to do for class and it was one of those book reports where you got to read whatever you wanted.  I pulled down the about to fall apart Sherlock Holmes and read The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is a great place to start.

When I got a little older the Jeremy Brett Granada adaptation came on TV so I felt I knew Sherlock Holmes but those shows cemented it for me. They made me feel like  "I know who this guy is, I really like this guy, he is a buddy of mine," and its been like that ever since.

Jenny: How did it the idea for the Holmes On The Range books come about?

Steve: It came about in one walk through the woods with my wife of an hour or so - I'm a pretty bad hiker so it mightn't have even been an hour - so maybe 55 minutes that I was  out hiking in beautiful woods on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County in California where we were living at the time,

There were not a lot of cars or buildings or planes around, so you had room to free up your mind and think.  My mind always drifts back to the past and to wonder what were people thinking 100 years ago or 400 years ago walking through this very area.

Also, there was one thing that was on my mind, there is a magazine over here, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine,