The Ben Snow series by Edward D. Hoch is a series of American Old West mysteries set around the turn of The 20th Century. Like the Dr. Sam Hawthorne series by the same author, these tales are carefully researched historical pieces, sometimes including real historical characters such as Butch Cassidy. He met another Hoch character, Sam Hawthorne, in "The Problem of the Haunted Teepee".
The first Ben Snow series appeared in 1961 in The Saint Mystery Magazine; the series has since been continued in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
The Ben Snow stories feature examples of:
- Amateur Sleuth: Ben is a cowboy drifter in the old west who discovers and solves mysteries.
- Animal Assassin: A snake in the story "Suddenly, with Fangs". Subverted in that the snake wasn't that interested in attacking, and the intended victim ended up using it on the assassin.
- Animal Stampede: In "Banner of Blood", the murderers used a cattle stampede to mask the true cause of the victim's death and Make It Look Like an Accident.
- Authority in Name Only: In "The Phantom Stallion" bedridden ranch owner Horace Grant has the ultimate say about approving the hirings done by his two sons and foreman but never questions their judgments, and simply appreciates being given the right to give final approval for formality's sake.
- Bandito: In the story "The Trail of the Golden Cross", Ben fights to protect the cross from the bandito Zanja who turns out to be a gringo and his gang.
- Been There, Shaped History: In "The Man in the Alley", Ben is present at the assassination of William McKinley, and later brings the secret mastermind behind the assassination to justice.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: In "The Man in the Alley", the mastermind behind the assassination of President William McKinley chooses to commit suicide when he realises Ben has enough evidence to expose him: especially after Ben points out several Lincoln conspirators were hanged on flimsier evidence.
- Big Bad Friend: Eddie Abilene the river boat gambler with the end of that story even having Ben noting that he lost a friend when he solved the case.
- The Big Easy: "The Ripper of Storeyville" is set in the sprawling Red Light District of New Orleans, known as Storeyville, in 1901.
- Bittersweet Ending: Stories tend to have Ben lose people he care about to either death or prison, or be forced to move out of town due to claims he's Billy the Kid.
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: In "The Vanished Steamboat", Ben shoots the gun out of the hand of someone who draws on him. When is employer asks him why he did that, Ben explains that it wasn't intentional, but when you don't have time to aim you instinctively shoot at what your eyes are looking at, and his attention had been focused on the gun.
- Blood from the Mouth: When Ben eventually meets the Dangerous Deserter he has been hunting in "Snow in Yucatan", he notes that he does not look well and is discreetly coughing up blood. This is actually a symptom of radiation poisoning he contracted from the 'medal' Professor Irreel gave him, which contains a sliver of radium. This kills him not long after Ben arrives.
- Blow Gun: In "The Edge of the Year 1900", a blowgun dart coated in curare is used as the murder weapon. The murderer actually pressed the dart into the victim in the dark. Using the dart was an attempt to frame the blowgun's owner.
- Circuit Judge: Ben is hired to protect one of these in "Dagger Money"
- Clear My Name: Eventually, fed up with always being accused of being Billy the Kid, Snow hires a detective to prove that either the real Billy is dead or track him down if he he survived. Unfortunately, the apparent real Billy the Kid is involved in the assassination of President McKinley and Ben is forced to kill him, with there being no evidence left to prove he was Billy the Kid.
- Cult: In "The Edge of the Year 1900", Ben spends New Year's Eve 1899 with a group following a woman who had vision that the world would end with coming of the year 1900.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: In one story, Ben comes across the con man Doc Robin, who demonstrates a type of hang glider then sells nonexistent copies of it and disappears with the down payments. He ends up murdered by a Retired Outlaw he tried to blackmail into helping him, with Ben sadly noting that Robin persisted with making crooked money when he could have just made it honestly by charging the townspeople money to watch him fly rather than do it for free as a supposed demonstration.
- Dangerous Deserter: In "Snow in Yucatan", Ben travels to Mexico in search of Wade Chancer, a deserter from the Rough Riders who is setting himself as a warlord with dreams of overthrowing the Mexican government.
- Dead Person Impersonation: In "The Ripper of Storeyville", a prostitute assumes the identity of another working girl named Bess who died in a fire so she can collect the $200 Bess's estranged father sends her every year. However, when the father writes to say he is dying, and is now a millionaire due to oil being found on his land, she and an associate start murdering anyone who can identify her as not being Bess; planning to wait to till the father dies and then claim the estate.
- The Drifter: Ben is a wandering cowhand looking for work who keeps stumbling into mysteries. It doesn't help that he is sometimes mistaken for Billy the Kid.
- Ghost Town: In "Ghost Town", Ben visits the ghost town of Raindeer looking for a place to spend the night, and is captured by a quartet of train robbers. Then someone starts picking the robbers off one by one...
- Headless Horseman: In the story "The Headless Horseman of Buffalo Creek", Ben investigates a local legend of a headless horseman and uncovers a brutal murder.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In "Ghost Town", the first of the Ten Little Murder Victims is impaled with a harpoon that leaves him Pinned to the Wall.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: In "Banner of Blood", the killers plan on Faking the Dead by killing a stooge and leaving his body too mangled to be identified expect by the tattoo of the American flag on his chest. However, they slip up because when they take their patsy to be tattooed, the tattooist tattoos the current American flag, and two states had been added since the killer had his done.
- Improbable Use of a Weapon: In "The Edge of the Year 1900", a blowgun dart coated in curare is used as the murder weapon. The murderer actually pressed the dart into the victim in the dark. Using the dart was an attempt to frame the blowgun's owner.
- Incurable Cough of Death: When Ben eventually meets the Dangerous Deserter he has been hunting in "Snow in Yucatan", he notes that he does not look well and is discreetly coughing up blood. This is actually a symptom of radiation poisoning he contracted from the 'medal' Professor Irreel gave him, which contains a sliver of radium. This kills him not long after Ben arrives.
- I Never Said It Was Poison:
- In "Frontier Street", the murderer gives himself away when he says how many times the victim had been struck over the head: something he would not have been able to tell just from looking at the body.
- In "The Man in the Alley", Ben realises that the mastermind behind the assassination William McKinley is Arthur Plenty] because [[spoiler:his editorial mentions the exact price Leon Czolgosz paid for the gun he used before Czolgosz had confessed all the details. Ben knew the price because he had been tailing Czolgosz when he bought it, but Plenty could only have known if he was the person who provided the cash.
- In "Brothers on the Beach", the killer slips up when they mention that they didn't have someone holding the wingtip steady during the first attempted flight of the Wright Brothers Flyer, which was when the murder occurred. However, the killer had gone some trouble to establish an alibi of not being present at the first attempt, and shouldn't have known what Orville and Wilbur did or didn't do.
- Injun Country: In "The Valley of Arrows", Ben solves a murder committed inside a fort besieged by 500 Navajo.
- Interesting Situation Duel: Realising the difficulties of bringing the murderer to trial in "Frontier Street", Ben agrees to meet him in a showdown in the main street: with Ben only having one live round in his revolver, and not knowing which chamber it is in.
- Jack the Ripoff: In "The Ripper of Storeyville", the murderer deliberately copies the M.O. of Jack the Ripper to make the murder of four prostitutes look like the random acts of a madman (and cause the police to wonder if the original Ripper is now in New Orleans) rather than a the case of Serial Killings, Specific Target it actually is.
- Kangaroo Court: In "The Only Tree in Tasco", Ben investigates the guilt of a Mexican convicted of murder by a kangaroo court."Did they have a trial?"
"Sure." She tossed her brown hair angrily. "Or what passes for a trial in Tasco. It was held this morning and the victim's son was the judge. Does that sound fair?" - Locked Room Mystery: In "The Phantom Stallion", an invalid confined to a bed is murdered inside a room with the door latched and the window locked. The killer used a chip of ice to hold the latch open as they closed the door. When the ice melted, the latch fell into place. The fact that the door was locked provides Ben with a vital clue.
- Mercy Lead: In "Frontier Street", a crooked gambler gets spooked and shoots a deputy. Ben, who witnesses the shooting, draws his own pistol but tells the gambler he will give him a five second head start.
- Monumental Theft: In "The Vanished Steamboat", the villain causes a entire riverboat to vanish while it is between two ports. And it wasn't sunk or sailed into a tributary or lake.
- Murder-Suicide: "The Phantom Stallion" ends this way, with the Wham Line at the end revealing that well after revealing the truth of what happened to the cuckolded husband of the murderess (and son of her victim, who had found out about the affair) Ben learns that instead of taking her to the sheriff, her husband gunned down her, her lover and then himself.
- New Year Has Come: "The Edge of the Year 1900" takes place on New Year's Eve 1899, with Ben getting mixed up with a Cult that believes that the world is going to end, and Ben having to solve a murder that occurs on the stroke of midnight.
- Obfuscating Postmortem Wounds:
- In "The Only Tree in Tasco", the Victim of the Week is found with multiple stab wounds in his chest, making it look like he has been the victim of a frenzied attack. Ben works out the victim had actually been shot and the killer hacked up the corpse's chest in order to retrieve the bullet, because the unusual calibre would have immediately identified them as the killer.
- In "Banner of Blood", the murderers smash in a man's head with an axe handle, and then use a cattle stampede to Make It Look Like an Accident.
- Phony Veteran: In "Snow in Yucatan", Ben travels to Mexico in search of Wade Chancer, a Dangerous Deserter from the Rough Riders. When Ben finds him, he is assembling an army of Indians and styling himself as a general. His uniform includes two medals he stole off dead men and claims to have won.
- Pinned to the Wall: In "Ghost Town", the first of the Ten Little Murder Victims is Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by a harpoon that leaves him pinned to the wall.
- Pocket Protector: In the short story "The Trail of the Golden Cross", Ben is saved from being shot in the back when the bullet deflects off the cross, which he had concealed by hiding it in the small of his back under his shirt.
- Quick Draw: Although he is trying to leave gun-play behind him (along with the persistent rumour that he is Billy the Kid), Ben is still phenomenally fast on the draw: able to draw and fire five times in the time it takes most men to get off one shot
- Red Light District: "The Ripper of Storeyville" is set in the sprawling red light district of New Orleans, known as Storeyville.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax:
- "Ghost Town" has a sheepman outside of a ghost town claiming that it's haunted as a temporary measure to keep anyone from wandering into the area and stumbling across his plan too rob and kill a band of train robbers.
- In "The Phantom Stallion", the murderer attempts to make the murder look like an attack by a ghost horse.
- In "The Headless Horseman of Buffalo Creek", a local rancher has his foreman pose as a Headless Horseman to scare away travellers to conceal the secret goldmine he is operating on his ranch.
- Serial Killings, Specific Target: In "The Ripper of Storeyville", a Serial Killer is preying on the prostitutes of Storeyville; the Red Light District of New Orleans. The killer deliberately mimics the M.O. of Jack the Ripper,causing authorities to worry that thhe original Ripper may have resurfaced in America (the story is set in 1901). However, the killer is actually deliberately murdering four prostitutes who are the only people who could expose the Dead Person Impersonation his partner is undertaking.
- Showdown at High Noon: Realising the difficulties of bringing the murderer to trial in "Frontier Street", Ben agrees to meet him in a showdown in the main street: with Ben only having one live round in his revolver, and not knowing which chamber it is in.
- Ten Little Murder Victims: In "Ghost Town", Ben is captured by a gang of train robbers who are using the eponymous ghost town as hideout. Then, while Ben is tied up, someone starts picking off members of the gang one by one...
- This Bear Was Framed:
- In "Banner of Blood", the murderers smash in a man's head with an axe handle, and then use a cattle stampede to make it look like an accident.
- In "The Phantom Stallion", the murderer bludgeons the victim with a horseshoe nailed to a piece of wood to make it look like he was killed by a ghost horse (It Makes Sense in Context).
- This Is My Name on Foreign: In "The Trail of the Golden Cross", the Mexican Bandito Zanja turns out to really be a white man named Cole Fosse; Zanja and Fosse being the Spanish and French, respectively, for 'ditch'.
- Twilight of the Old West: The stories start in 1890 (nine years after the death of Billy the Kid) and advance in to the early years of the 20th Century. "The Edge of the Year 1900" takes place on New Year's Eve 1899.
