Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
3 Cheers for the Bicycle Corps! Oh yeah, and for Twain., February 28, 2002
"Tom's Lawyer" is the sixth in Heck's series featuring Samuel Clemens. All the books are at least mildly enjoyable and sometimes are a lot of fun. The basic premise of the series is that Clemens has hired recent Yale graduate William Wentworth Cabot as his traveling secretary. Inevitably, the pair meet with murder, and Clemens (known to everyone in the world as "Mark Twain" with the exception of Wentworth who apparently has never read any of Twain's books) emerges triumphant as the detective. In this installment, Clemens, Wentworth, Mrs. Clemens and one of the Clemens' daughters are in Montana, taking a week's rest from the first leg of their project round-the-world tour. Also in town is Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show, featuring Annie Oakley. Another visitor to town is Tom Blankenship, the boyhood friend of Clemens' that was the inspiration for the character of Huckleberry Finn. Theodore Roosevelt shows up, too, to help investigate when Blankenship is accused of murder. Also on hand is the Buffalo Soldier Bicycle Corps, and I was immensely pleased to see them featured (and incredibly smug about having read about the Corps the previous year in Sorensen's "Iron Riders"). The mystery itself is okay, although Wentworth and Clemens never get around to questioning witnesses under their noses until Clemens' daughter gets into trouble trying to take over the investigation. Wentworth (is he ever going to read one of Twain's books?) is the brawn of the pair, although he has acquired at least some street smarts since his first outing. It's the character of Twain himself that is, as always, the strongest and most enjoyable aspect of this book and the series. By no means a great book, "Tom's Lawyer" is definitely readable and re-readable.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Huck Finn Grows Up As A Lawman Out West., October 28, 2005
This Mark Twain mystery features Tom Blankenship, the son of the town drunk in Hannibal, Missouri,who'd been the model for Huck Finn, after he is grown up and had become a justice of the peace in Montana. I once knew a real justice of the peace, Thurston Miller, in Washington, D.C., but he was not a real judge per se.
In Blankenship's jurisdiction, there had been a 'self-defense murder' by Zachary and C.D. who were sprung from the jail by their Helena lawyer, Leon Dirksen's plea to the townfolk that these two boys were really just good but had got in with bad company. In a letter to Twain, Tom wrote that this highfaluting lawyer was just trying to gain fame so he could run for Governor, and that Judge Joe McCoy wasn't pleased with the result of his inciting the townsfolk to let them out without a trial. Tom had been charged with the crime and had no alibi.
In 1895, Mark Twain was in Missoula, Montana, and encountered Theodore Roosevelt, a Harvard man living out west for awhile before returning to New York to get involved in politics. He'd told them that "a vigorous life's the only kind worth living. Chasing down malefactors at home and abroad...that's a bully occupation for a rascal like you." Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show traveled the country and the world with Annie Oakley and Frank Butler and a plethora of freaks.
Peter Heck is writing a series of Mark Twain mysteries from a different perspective. Some are THE PRINCE AND THE PROSECUTOR, A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN CRIMINAL COURT, and DEATH ON THE MISSISSIPPI. He seems to be having fun doing these little paperbacks on a historical figure who was bigger-than-life.
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by Peter J. Heck
by Peter J. Heck
by Peter J. Heck
by Peter J. Heck
by Peter J. Heck
