Tuesday, August 27, 2024

The Weight of a Dead Man by Weston Ochse & Yvonne Navarro

 


“You staring at me like you want to have my child,” the gunslinger said, his words like sawdust.

This tale has an intriguing premise, it is a mash-up of Old West adventure with Nate Dupes, a grandson of Edgar Allan Poe’s ratiocinating detective C. Auguste Dupin, working as a Pinkerton agent.

I’m all for experimentation with a bit of Jules Verne overlay of “streampunkish” elements but…this traipses a bit too far into incredulity for this reader’s tastes.

Wildy complicated plotting, convoluted secret societies with baroque motives, masters of disguise that stretch credulity to the breaking point.

Who travels with just the right amount of gear in their carpet bag to transform from a debonair French cosmopolitan to an authentic Chinese “coolie” in the blink of an eye?

Perhaps as a television episode or a graphic novel where such events pass quickly like confection this sates, but in prose where the reader is free to ponder loose elements at leisure…

Not unskillfully written, but this reader lacks the suspension of disbelief required for this journey.

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