There is more than a little controversy currently about the prevalence of historical characters as detectives. The question seems to be: if the person in question didn't exhibit any such preference during their lifetime, why have them do it now? But I say, why not?

Most of these historical detectives are writers, or other such creative folks. And if you stop and think about it, what qualities especially contribute to the success of a detective of any era, but most especially before the age of technology?

Well, I think it would be perception, acuity, intelligence and a willingness to allow the suspension of disbelief for at least a short period of time. And what are the characteristics most needed by authors? (Other than a thick skin, that is.) Why--perception, acuity, intelligence and a willingness to allow the suspension of disbelief, along with some skill at writing and using the language. I suspect a curiosity bump would come in handy, too! Makes perfect sense to me.

This book is a case in point. Samuel Clemens, whose main fame is as the famous author, Mark Twain, takes his family and his secretary/assistant/man-of-all-work, Wentworth Cabot, to Florence, Italy, for the winter. Clemens is, however, treated rather coolly by the citizens of Florence, their feathers still ruffled over what he'd written about them after his previous visit.

Wentworth uses his spare time to indulge his passion for great art, with which Florence abounds. He also stumbles over a cafe that plays host to other visiting Americans: chess-players, as well as artists of all kinds, from all countries, and a few anarchists mixed in. Not to mention a few anti-anarchists. It's a marvelous mix!

The period detail seems perfectly wonderful as Wentworth describes the leisurely lifestyles enjoyed by his employer and his new-found friends. Murder will, of course, present itself, and it takes a combined effort by Clemens and Cabot, along with several unusual policemen to get to the heart of the matter. They do, in a very satisfactory manner. This is not a fast-paced book, but one that may be easily read--and enjoyed--in shorter doses, if desired.

Wentworth Cabot is a member of the Boston Brahmins with a social standing that allows easy entrance to the social elite and the highest political powers. If he desired, he could become a lawyer in the family firm, gain some experience, and run for office. Instead, Wentworth opts to become the personal secretary to Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens as a means of seeing the world.

The Clemens family travels to Florence, Italy, along with Wentworth and he makes friends with people his own age at a café in the heart of the city. He takes a liking to Virginia Fleetwood whose brother-in-law want to hire him to run an art gallery back in Boston for him. She wants Wentworth to accept the position, but he prefers staying with the Clemens brood and rejects the offer. The next day, the police arrive to question Wentworth about the disappearance of Virginia. Also missing is a valuable Raphael masterpiece owned by her brother-in-law. The police find the murdered body of Virginia in a graveyard and next to her strangled corpse is the frame from the Raphael picture. Wentworth is now the chief suspect, leaving it to him and his employer to prove otherwise.

Anyone wanting to see a different perspective on Mark Twain will want to read THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGLER and the previous works in this series. Readers observe the man behind the literary legend because Peter Heck has the ability to provide a lucid look through the media image. The well-drawn mystery provides an interesting amateur sleuth investigation led by Twain into the who-done-it realm. As with the previous novels, this tale retains a freshness that will please historical mystery readers and Mark Twain fans.

Harriet Klausner

Working as the travel secretary to the great Mark Twain has been a wonderful, but strange experience for Wentworth Cabot. As he prepares for his third journey, Wentworth is more than just excited. Who would not be when one is being paid to travel first class aboard a London bound steamship. Wentworth does pray that this trip, unlike its two predecessors (see A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN CRIMINAL COURT and DEATH ON THE MISSISSIPPI), has no accompanying murder to investigate.

Also on the sea journey is Rudyard Kipling and his spouse and the wealthy Babson family. When Robert Babson disappears, his father screams murder and has proof to defend his charges. Wentworth and the two great writers begin to investigate the disappearance because they strongly feel that an injustice is about to occur.

THE PRINCE AND THE PROSECUTOR is a great mystery tale that brings to life Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling in one dazzling tale (what more can one ask?). The story line is intriguing and fun and the historical characters and the allusions to the original tale that this story is based on make for a great reading experience. Fans of historical fiction need to read all three "Twain mysteries" because they are intelligent and enjoyable books.

Harriet Klausner

This book was very good. It had a good level of suspense, and made it hard to tell who did it, because everyone seemed to hate the victim(except his parents)! Mark Twain wishes in vain that this trip will not leave him with a murder to solve. Told from the view of his traveling secretary, Wentworth Cabot, Twain's trip to England to see his family seems far from monotonous even before the murder. With a good amount of humor, an interesting plot, and boatloads of details, this mystery will keep you guessing to the last page.

"A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court", as probably everyone knows by now, is the sophomore effort by writer Peter Heck. It follows his earlier successful Mark Twain mystery "Death on the Mississippi". This book showed a lot of promise from page one, with the introduction of George Washington Cable as a featured character. Heck did not spend a lot of time explaining who Cable was, a decision which pleased me. I knew immediately that Heck had done some homework on New Orleans history and I sat back, eagerly anticipating an interesting and sly mystery full of bold, well-written characters and inside jokes on New Orleans historical figures. What I got was something less than that. The story, a vague and meandering tail involving the poisoning death of a prominent white Orleanian and the black cook falsely accused of his murder, was indeed an entertaining one, but offered nothing new to the now-bursting ranks of the New Orleans mystery subgenre. Writers plotting mysteries set in the Crescent City now offer us one of three choices; murder against a Mardi Gras backdrop, old family intrigue or corrupt politicians. Sometimes, if they are especially clever, they will mix and match these story elements, but for the most part, they are simply not that clever. For me, the mysteries that work best are the ones that use New Orleans as a setting, but accept the fact that Orleanians have to make groceries, pick up the laundry, clean out their rain gutters and fight traffic like the rest of us. Some writers present a New Orleans whose residents do nothing but fling beads from Mardi Gras floats, run for office and go to fais do dos with their old Cajun families who have so many secrets they are fairly flowing from the closets. But I digress. As a favor to Cable, crotchety old Sam Clemens and his secretary, Wentworth Cabot, fresh off a murder investigation on a Mississippi riverboat, decides to find evidence to free the black cook. Along the way he meets Buddy Bolden, considered the father of modern jazz (although no recordings of his work exist), Marcus Keyes, Tom Anderson and "the widow Paris", whom you will recognize if you know anything about New Orleans history. If not, I'll keep the secret. It obviously vexed author Heck to no end that voodooienne Marie Laveau the second died in 1887 and was not available historically for this 1890's romp through the old quarter, because he felt the need to recreate her in the guise of Eulalie Echo, whom the characters spend the rest of the book self-consciously calling "'Lalie". Get it? 'Lalie Echo = Marie Laveau. Jeez. The mystery seems to be going along nicely until... The mystery is solved Perry Mason-style, when 'Lalie Echo calls all of the principle characters together at a voodoo ceremony and tells them that Damballah, the snake-spirit, knows one of them is guilty and will haunt their dreams unless the guilty party confesses. Then the guilty party confesses. Sheesh. Overall this book was fun, but not very challenging. A good read for a rainy day or a long bus trip, but don't make a point of rushing out to get it. Patrick Burnett King of the Soapbox Derby

Mr. Heck has a very good grip on the world of Mark Twain and New Orleans in this book. His discriptions of the wonderful foods on this City made me hungry the entire book. Mr. Heck weaves a very good mystery. He also understands the culture of the time and explains it very well. The author captures Mark Twain's humor in his characters, many times I laughed out loud. Mr. Heck's books are worth the read.

A decent, serviceable mystery, using Samuel Clemens as its detective--competing, actually, with Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard to solve the puzzle of a shooting at a seance.

The book spins its wheels in the first hundred pages or so, which is disappointing. Clemens and his employee/servant, the narrator, look like they are accomplishing something after the lights come on at a "sitting" (apparently the official name for a seance), and a well-known doctor is discovered with a bullet in his head, but really, but it's fair to say that the early sections just keep rehashing and reiterating the few scanty things already known. Characters, all of them, just keep pointing out the same details over and over again...which leads to another criticism: boy oh boy, is this book all talk! This novel is mainly dialogue, chat chat chat--take out what's in quotation marks and you would have a very thin book.

Characters yapping endlessly back and forth is a plague on the book throughout, but the second half is livelier and more expansive than what had preceded it. Clemens (he's Mark Twain too; you know that, right?--it's just that he's mostly refered to as Mr. Clemens in this book) does manage to get himself and his trusty servant, Wentworth, into some jeopardy in the later stages--both in a seedy bar where Nosey Parkers are apt to get stomped on, and at a shooting range where Clemens wants to see an airgun tested--it may be something like the strange flashless, noiseless weapon that might've used at the seance--only to have someone just off the perimeter of the range start shooting back!

I have to admit that I was interested in the book enough, as it warmed up, to start trying to come up with my own theory as to HOW the quasi locked-room murder was done, so that's a good sign. I was somewhat off the truth, naturally. And even though I do feel this book contains too much dialogue, and an opening that gets stuck in a rut for a while after the killing, I got happier as things went along, and characters stopped mulling over what we already knew, thank you. Characterization--mainly established through chatter, of course--is nicely handled; we have shady Ed McPhee, smarmy Cedric Villiers, our noble narrator (who proves to be quite loyal to Twain, when it comes to stepping into the path of danger and risking his own hide to protect "Mark Twain!), and the innocence of Twain's plucky young daughters, who insist on trying to help with the mystery.

This latest in the "Mark Twain Mysteries" series may well be the best. Like the others, the mystery itself is secondary to the charm of the characters and the travelogue, but those are positive things and a recommendation.

This book is a must-read for fans of the real Mark Twain and for historical-mystery fans. Heck has done his homework.

"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.

While Heck creates a decent Twain for his book, the rest is a sorry excuse for a mystery. An obvious villain and an insipid narrator make for a painful read. If not for a decent grasp of Twain's general demeanor and commentary this book would have been unreadable. A good idea but the execution does not make me want to see if the author grows into a better mystery writer.

William Wentworth Cabot has just graduated from Yale, and for his first job, he becomes Mark Twain's traveling secretary. Interested in travel, Wentworth is over his head when a body is found in New York with Mark Twain's name in his pocket. Does it have anything to do with Twain's plans to dig up a fortune in gold mid-trip? And is the killer on board their ship all the way on the Mississippi?

This book is an enjoyable jaunt down the Mississippi with Mark Twain on a riverboat. The main characters were enjoyable, and I especially enjoyed the portrayal of Twain. The plot was a little weak, however. The information on riverboats and the river was interesting, but too much attention was paid to it, with little advancing the story. Still, once a second body is found, the plot kicks into high gear. I was caught off guard by the revelation of the killer, but everything fit together logically.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this historic mystery series.

Anyone who is a fan of Mark Twain will enjoy this book. This delightful debut of Detective Clemens includes an exciting riverboat trip on the Mississippi, a tale of buried treasure, a gang of tricky gamblers, and tons of period detail. Peter J. Heck's portrayal of Twain is every bit believable from his quick wit to his southern drawl. He and his traveling secretary, Wentworth Cabot, make an unusual team. I found this book to be suspenseful, entertaining, and informative. It left me wanting to read more.

If Robert Asprin really wrote much of this book, I would be very surprised. After the first two Phule books, I really looked forward to a new series filled with the humor and fun that were so typical of the Myth books. Unfortunately, the third book in the series took a turn away from the original...and Phule Me Twice falls even farther from the tree. The characters are very shallow, almost caricatures of their previous selves. What had been likeable and enjoyable characters have now become darker and more cynical...more serious even. In some series this may be for the best, but these books are supposed to be based on lighthearted humor. Even the relationship between Phule and Beeker has taken on the air of an old married couple more than the old friends they used to be. In a series that is driven by likeable characters and lighthearted comedy - where the misfits find a way to not only fit in, but flourish - Phule Me Twice has taken a sad deviation from the original, successful recipe. The Phule's Company series will never be "real" sci-fi, and perhaps that is what the author - or authors - will need to get back to. If you are looking for the classic "sci-fun" of the first two Phule's books...in my opinion you will have to look elsewhere. I still will look forward to the next installment though...just to be sure;)

Well, first of all, this book betters the series from the last one. An important point if you are planning on following along.

In the world of SF, this is the "screwball comedy" of the genre.

Cpt. Phule and the Omega bunch get a new assignment, something they can really sink their teeth into, they are working for the Zenobians now, those delightful little reptiles with an appreciation for anyone who "goes all out only for their friends".

Phule's been recognized by the State department and so he gets the assignment when the Zenobians specifically request his outfit. The fun starts because Phule's higher ups don't want him to succeed again, and plot a convincing method of bringing him down with a crash.

And previous elements of the series all conspire to deliver surprises for everyone.

A fun read, doesn't do the expected, and really begins to recapture the humor and characters of the first two books. In particular, the slowness of the previous book is gone and new recruits in that book are already proving their worth in this one.

If you want light SF reading that makes you smile, go for this book.

The Phule series has had its series of problems. Phule's Company was an excellent book, "soft" SF, certainly, but very well done. Phule's Paradise was all set-up and very little pay-off, even though it was enjoyable to read. A Phule and His Money introduced many interesting ideas, but the authors seemed incapable of doing these ideas justice. But, with Phule Me Twice, we finally return to the unflawed greatness which hasn't been present since the original. This book brings in an interesting conflict by introducing the new CO and XO of Phule's company; two men who are far more conservative in their views of Legion policy. We see how Phule's Company could never possibly work as a regular Legion company; and we understand that its strength is its ability to forego the rigid policies and simply do what makes SENSE, instead of what the book says to do. The Phule series, particullary "Company" and "Twice" are books which are essentially about leadership--and for that reason alone I would highly recommend them.

As a long time fan of Robert Asprin ( going back to Thieves World ) I was very disappointed in this installment of such a fun series. It's pretty obvious right from the start that somebody else basically wrote the book. The character's voices, mannerisms and speech patterns all changed. Sushi no long speaks with an accent in broken english, and the other characters also lose that individualism that the first two books had. You could pull dialog from the first two books and pretty much know who was speaking by the way it was written but that was lost in this book. All in all it read more like an attempt to make money on a hit series than a real effort at continuing, what had been, a great bunch or books.

If you are loking for a fun and entertaining science fiction book you've come to the right place.
This book's main character is Captain Willard Phule, a commander of the Space Legion, which is the security branch at a casino called Fat Chance. Phule whips his troops into shape, and their abilities are soon recognized by General Blitzkrieg, who deploys them to the struggling planet Landoor. As they investigate the new planet, they find out that the goverenment is secretly planning to build a theme park. With this information, the Space Legion starts their own park for competition. In the end, they have created the biggest combined theme park in the galaxy.
The characters in Aspirin's books have very unique and witty personalities.Although the character may seem a little unreal, it is almost scary realizing how similar they are to everyday people.
A Phule and His Money is a book targeted towards the young teen age group. The book may seem a little confusing at the start, but, like most books, it develops soon after. I don't think anyone over 15 would like this book, because the main idea wouldn't seem to interesting and it doesn't have a big revealing ending that sums the whole book up. I don't think this book would win an award, but if you're a sci-fi lover, this is your book.

The "Phule" books -- all of them -- are meant to be tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted reads, and "A Phule and His Money" fits the bill, following in the entertaining footsteps of its predecessors. All of the characters are there -- the butler (who plays a major role despite what a previous reviewer claimed), Chocolate Henry, Mother, Sgt. Brandy, et al -- and Phule's escapades as he outwits his superiors in rank while accomplishing his mission's goals are as humorous as ever. There's mystery, organized crime, abductions, even romance! Note: you must read the two previous books in order to understand this one. Also, don't expect in-depth plots or character exposes. This book is meant to be fun, not something on the book-club list.