YMMV / Holmes on the Range

• Alternate Character Interpretation: In the short story "Partners in Crime," is Emmeline Winter laughing during Old Red's summation as the act of a Graceful Loser or because Old Red got her and her sister's motive wrong and they didn't burn down their abusive father's barn so they could steal the insurance money he'd collected? Immediately after Old Red's summation, the miserly Mr. Winter rages about how he'd recently hidden most of his money in the barn, and it burned up with the barn. Maybe his daughters knew he'd changed hiding places, stole the money, and set the fire to cover that up, in which case Emmeline is laughing because Red's summation might still let them keep the money everyone thinks is gone.
• Catharsis Factor: The Kill It with Fire fate of the Serial Killer and his main accomplice in A Crack in the Lens is more likely to feel karmic than horrifying after their nonchalant feelings about their grisly crimes.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Mike Barson is the crafty, Affably Evil leader of the Give 'Em Hell Boys, a group of train robbers who are viewed as folk heroes for their campaign against the heavy-handed Union Pacific Railroad. One of their robberies unexpectedly nets them a hundred bars of gold, but they can't take it with them and bury it near the train tracks. He and his co-leader Augie Welch tell the rest of the gang that the money will be used to fight against the railroad, but really plan to keep it for themselves. Two months later, they dig up the gold and make a big show to distract the passengers and crew of a different train while they hide the gold in the passenger car. They beat up the train's guards and post a bounty on the railroad directors so that all available railroad detectives will be sent after them. Barson and Welch hide on the train's undercarriage, and then in an express car, planning to disconnect the passenger cars and flee with the gold. While he murders multiple witnesses to his actions, Barson is far less cruel than either Welch or their Ax-Crazy mole, displaying some respect and admiration for his adversaries on occasion.
  • Eddie Pegg sets out to steal a valuable diamond and lure Sherlock Holmes out of hiding to be murdered. He does so by assuming the alias of Boothby Greene and entering a mystery-solving contest. Pegg acts like a modest good sport, but one who has the skills to do well in the competition, aided by having murdered the original organizer and tampered with his rules for future tasks. He does a good job of giving himself a fake alibi for one of his crimes: switching places with a waiter and pretending he was waiting on the other detectives under their noses the while evening to show off his skills. Upon being caught, he acts gracefully and tries to divert suspicion away from his friend and accomplice before attempting to shoot a way out for both of them when that fails.
• Moral Event Horizon: In the first book, Ully and Spider go from being shifty Mean Bosses to blatantly evil Bad Bosses in a revolting manner when they use a branding iron on Pinky Harris to punish him for getting drunk and Spider openly relishes the experience.
• Stoic Woobie: Old Red may not show much emotion, but his parents, sisters, aunt, cousins, and one of his brothers died from disease or deadly floods. His fiancee was killed by a Serial Killer imitating Jack the Ripper and he later finds out she may have been a Gold Digger leading him on. Plenty of people mock him for his detective aspirations, and he's nonfatally shot in the climax of one book and temporarily blinded in another.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The brothers don't dwell much on their late mothers, sisters, and cousins during their first visit to their hometown in the story "Partners in Crime."
  • The short story "Curious Incidents" has the brothers receive a letter talking about a potential were-cougar that has been eluding a hunter and a man who was found drowned far away from any water after having been seen looking at a treasure map. After they go to help the letter writer, it turns out almost all of that stuff was made up to get their attention, and the client just wants them to find a missing sheepdog. There are some interesting twists in that adventure, but the fake story might have been a more interesting tale.
  • The set up of the short story "Bad News" features feuding colorful and politically-charged newspaper editors who are trying to win over the local religious communities by making rival ministers' kids their apprentices (with said kids having somehow formed an Odd Friendship with each other and developed communist beliefs), and The Klan being potentially involved in the case (making things It's Personal for the brothers due to how Confederates killed several of their relatives in the Civil War and Old Red's idol Sherlock Holmes once fought the Klan). There are also Noodle Incidents about the various ethnic groups of miners feuding with each other and the town politicians squabbling about dog licenses and where to build a post office. All of this feels like it could have been enough for a feature-length novel instead of a short story that resolves itself in about fifty pages.