Le Cafe Singe Bleu Serving generous portions of history and mystery from our monthly menu Volume 1, Issue 2, February 2003
The Mountain of Jade
Edward D. Hoch
EQMM, March 2003
Detective: Ben Snow Time: May, 1900 Location: Mexico Pages: 15
Should you read this story: Oui.
Review by Dot Emm
Opening Lines
It was in May of 1900, following Ben Snow's Yucatan adventure, that he first heard about the moyuntain of jade and the game of bull and bear. He'd set off riding north toward home, but the nine-hundred-mile journey back to Texas was a long one for Oats to undertake without a break. In Tampico, on the way down, Ben had even considered buying a new horse. But he'd been set upon by bandits during the transaction and was only saved when the faithful Oats carried him away. At nineteen, Ben's horse was beginning to show its age, and for the first time he considered putting him out to stud back in Texas. Oats was such a gentle animal that people often mistook him for a gelding, but Ben knew the horse would still have the strength of a young stallion when it came to fathering a foal.
Englishman Duffy Martin offers Ben Snow a sizaeable sum to act as his bodyguard when he goes to buy the map that gives the location of a mountain of jade, lost since the time of the Maya. The two men ride south, toward the border between Guatemala and Mexico, where Martin is to make the purchase, under cover of a ''bull and bear game.'' But as the two men walk towards Carlos Tono, waiting underneath the stands in the darkness, he suddenly falls, shot. Who has killed him, and what has become of the map to the mountain of jade?
Matador and Bull, by Picasso
Ben Snow is a fast gun. He's fond of his horse, Oats. He has a sense of honor. And that's all we learn about him through this story. He is not colorful enough to be memorable. This is the latest in a series of Ben Snow stories, so presumably Hoch thinks his readers already know much about the main character.
The setting of Mexico does not come to life, either, really. Ben Snow and Duffy Martin ride through Mexico to close to the Guatemalan border, and what they subsist on through the trip, let alone what they see on the way, are left to our imagination. The 'bull-and-bear-game' is a good dash of local color, as is the notion that since soldiers avoid the area it is the bandits who provide the law.
The main topic of interest is the jade mountain, fascinating because it is true. According to the blurb for the story, ''the New York Times reported in in 1998 that a mother lode of jade roughly the size of Rhode Island had been discovered in a densely forested region of the Guatamalan wilds, exposed following adeadly hurricane that had hit that region.'' Where do writers get ideas for their stories? Prolific writer Edward H. Hoch got this one from the New York Times.
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine is published monthly by Dell Publications. There are two period mystery stories in the March 2003 issue, ''The Wings of Isis,'' by Marilyn Todd, and ''The Mountain of Jade,'' by Edward D. Hoch.
Other stories in this issue are:
''Acts of Revenge,'' by Mark SaFranko
''Anything for Olivia,'' by John morgan Wilson
''A Gathering at Lake St. Catherine,'' by O'Neil De Noux
''Rogues' Gallery,'' by Robert Barnard
''Deadly Copy,'' by Charles McConnell
''Little Miss Muffett,'' by Marianne Strong
''The Spaces Between,'' by Mary Freeman
''The Grass is Always Greener,'' by Sandy Balzo.
The Jury Box by Jon L. Breen reviews books, and there are two poems.
