Customer Reviews

Ambrose Bierce and the One-Eyed Jacks

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Oakley Hall is better known for more literary works like Warlock (New York Review Books Classics), but his series of historical mysteries featuring Ambrose Bierce should not be missed.

If you do not know about Ambrose Bierce, then stop reading this and get a copy of The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary and then get a copy of Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (Classic Reprint). To say that he had a "sardonic view of human nature" as Wikipedia does is probably a bit too sunny. Think Mark Twain in his later days, but with the humor still intact.

Anyway, it's 1891 and Bierce and our narrator Tom Redmond are working for Willie Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. When some naughty photographic plates of Hearst's girl go missing, they are dispatched to find and retrieve them. Two murders in Sausalito seem connected with the missing photo plates and the general debauchery rampant in town across the bay from the City.

Hall also takes a poke at one of the darkest dark sides in American history. Redmond is covering Chinatown and its child slavery and prostitution and falling in love with the religious activist Eliza Lindley. The tong, of course, hate Lindley and take steps to stop her - when they aren't too busy fighting one another. Lindley's ally and successful lawyer "falls" down a staircase and breaks his neck. Redmond is on the spot when "highbinders" from the Feng yups tong assassinate the leader of the Sam yups in a scene that rings true.

I disagree with other reviewers here, in particular that the plot is predictable - if anything, I would give demerits for the improbability of the way the story lines are tied together. And while Redmond is the main protagonist, Bierce is certainly more than a "very minor" character.

Ambrose Bierce and the One-Eyed Jacks is an entertainment worthy of attention even if it does not rise above the level of its genre.

Ambrose Bierce is a cynical writer for the San Francisco Examiner who likes to investigate mysteries. In this story, set in 1891, he delves into the murder of a notorious British yachtsman who is luring young ladies to his boat. The story is told from the perspective of his fellow reporter and side-kick, Tom Redmond, who falls in love with the mysterious Eliza Lindley, which is half the story. Bierce is also smitten by another reporter. The book is mildly amusing and a quick, easy read, but not memorable and therefore hard to recommend.

The plot is predictable; the setting ill-developed; and the characters are shallow. The novel could have been as easily set in the LA of the 1930s as SF of the 1890s. Each chapter is preceded by an entry from the Devil's Dictionary the relevance of which for any given chapter is often problematic. What really rankles me is that although Ambrose Bierce is featured in the title he is a VERY minor character in the novel coming across as a somewhat cynical middle aged de facto bachelor smitten by a rather supercilious newspaperwoman. On the positive side the novel is short and not demanding--a perfect soporific.