Written In Fire is well written. Until someone shot him in the back, leaving him an invalid, Lobo Black was one of the most formidable lawmen in the Old West. After dictating his memoirs to his new found friend Quinn Booker, the publication of which leaves both men financially well off, Black buys a small newspaper hiring Booker to be the paper's reporter. No sooner does Booker arrive though then a world famous photographer visiting their city is murdered, but before dying, leaves a clue to his killer literally written in fire.

William Andrea wrote Written In Fire as a homage to Rex Stout and his wonderful armchair detective Nero Wolfe. As such it is a fitting tribute by one of mystery fiction's most respected writers to the doyen of the American mystery in addition to being the first in a fascinating series on its own merits. Of course, even if Mr. Andrea had not acknowledged Written In Fire as a homage to Stout it would've been obvious to fans of Nero Wolfe when you consider that Nero Wolfe literally means Black Wolf while Lobo Black, of course, literally means Wolf Black. One of Written In Fire's strengths are its characters who, though part of a homage to the Nero Wolfe series, are well conceived and stand on their own as three dimensional beings. Its other strength is the concept of merging not just detective fiction with the western genre, but armchair detective fiction at that creating a hybrid that is as interesting as it is unique. The writing is good, not on par with Rex Stout of course, but I could count the number of writers who are on par with Stout on the fingers of one hand and still have a digit or two left over.

The mystery in Written In Fire is its biggest weakness since its almost painfully obvious who the killer is, or for that matter, is going to be even before the murder occurs. There is also a running plotline in the series regarding the mystery of who shot Black in the back and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. Having such a thread running through the Lobo Black series could make it difficult for new readers not coming into the series from the beginning to completely understand what is occurring. Time will tell on that, but it does seem to me it would have been better to have dealt with Black's attacker in one book rather then running it across several.

Written In Fire may not be as hot as it could be, but it's still pretty good and I recommend it to anyone that loves mysteries and especially to fans of Rex Stout.

Grade: B+

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