by Dirk Fletcher
1995, Leisure
Spur McCoy investigates a train robbery with three major items stolen: bearer bonds, cash to buy a ranch, and the oversexed daughter of a politician. The reader is made aware early on that this is an inside job and the daughter is in on it, and it plays out similar to Fargo in some ways, though it came out a year earlier. They both draw from a noir background, don't think there's a direct connection.
McCoy does his investigation, but most of the action plays out without him, as the criminals double cross each other or are otherwise done in by their criminal lifestyle. Light on action, but plenty of sleaze and grit. The longer length means we get some subplot detours, like a woman talking her husband into sleeping with her sister and a criminal seducing a boarding house landlady.
The Soiled Dove is the name of a whorehouse that doesn't have much to do with the story.
