Dysfunctional Detectives

According to the Pulitzer-prize winning screenwriter David Mamet, "Asperger's syndrome helped make the movies." In his collection of essays, Bambi vs Godzilla, Mamet talks about the type of autism called Asperger's.

According to Mamet, the symptoms of Aspergers include "early precocity, a great ability to maintain masses of information, a lack of ability to mix with groups in age-appropriate ways, ignorance of or indifference to social norms, high intelligence and difficulty with transitions, married to a preternatural ability to concentrate on the minutiae of the task at hand."

Someone once described Asperger's as "mild autism with a startling streak of genius." In other words, many of those with Aspergers are brilliant but socially dysfunctional. A slightly sexier version of Rain Man.

Mamet goes on to say: "This sounds to me like a job description for a movie director." He also points out that Asperger’s syndrome “has its highest prevalence among Ashkenazi Jews and their descendants”, who make up the bulk of Hollywood movers-and-shakers.

Is Mamet joshing us when he claims that Hollywood is run by men with Asperger's? Maybe.

Or Maybe not.

Sometimes Asperger's is so subtle that it's not diagnosed until middle age. A well known case is that of Tim Page, a Pulitzer prize winning music critic who only found out that he had mild version of the syndrome when he was 45. He has written about it in his book Parallel Play: Life as an Outsider and was recently interviewed on NPR. "I didn't suffer from classic autism but something was clearly wrong..." says Page in one interview. "I couldn't tell you the color of my mother's eyes or what a person was wearing last night at dinner, but I'll remember exactly what we talked about."

If Hollywood is dominated by sexy Rain Men, it might explain why some of our most popular fictional characters have certain characteristics which might be called 'autistic'.

Think of Star Trek's Mr Spock (left) and Data. Both characters are popular among high-functioning autistic people. One of the most famous and articulate autistic authors, Temple Grandin, has confessed that she is a fan of Lt Commander Data, the android who tries to understand human behavior.

Then there's the brilliant but anti-social Dexter. His dysfunctionality is due to a traumatic childhood, like Lisbet Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I don't think Salander has Aspergers, but she does meet two of the criteria of someone suffering from that disorder: “high intelligence” and “ignorance of or indifference to social norms".

Sheldon Cooper of Big Bang Theory is the perfect example of a character with "high intellience" but "indifference to social norms". Indifference being the operative word in Sheldon's case.

Best of all are the many detectives who seem to have Asperger's-like qualities. The most famous of these, of course, goes back way before Hollywood.

Sherlock Holmes (right) is a creation of the late 19th century, but is just as popular today. He has several character traits of a person with Asperger's, though Steven Moffatt's clever new Sherlock sometimes lapses into ADHD behavior, dashing about with an almost Dr-Who-ish energy.

Adrian Monk isn't exactly autistic, but as a sufferer of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) he is a brilliant observer of detail and symmetry but a flop when it comes to interpersonal relationships. There is great comic and tragic potential in a character like this. Do all the best detectives have psychological or emotional weaknesses?

Not necessarily. Columbo is modelled on G.K.Cheserton's apparently ineffectual Father Brown. Whereas Holmes uses his brilliant deductive faculties, Father Brown uses intuition. But like Columbo, his fumbling, bumbling personality lulls criminals into a false sense of security. They may seem to be socially dysfunctional, but they're not.

A detective who is wildly socially dysfunctional and delightfully wounded is the wonderful Dr Gregory House (top of this blog). Like Sherlock Holmes, he is a social misfit with only one true friend. It's been pointed out before that the creators were partly inspired by Conan-Doyle's great detective.

Another modern-day Holmes wannabe is Christopher Boone, the teenage narrator of Mark Haddon's best-selling book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Christopher is a genius at remembering facts and doing mathematical calculations, but he is socially inept and takes every statement literally. Christopher's favorite fictional character is Sherlock Holmes, (in fact, the "curious incident of the dog in the night-time" is a quote from a Sherlock Holmes mystery). Christopher is obsessed with the Victorian detective and employs Holmesian methodology when a neighborhood dog is murdered.

Of all the fictional characters mentioned so far, Christopher Boone is certainly the highest on the scale. Like most people with Asperger's, he can't decode facial expressions and needs guidelines to help him figure out what people are feeling. Christopher has a flat, neutral, toneless voice which comes across as wonderfully deadpan. "He doesn't get sentimental," said Haddon in one interview. "He doesn't explain things too much... It's the voice of person who doesn't feel there is a reader out there. So when you're writing in this voice, you never try and persuade the reader to feel this or that about something."

I've been thinking about detectives with Asperger's because the hero of my new series, The Western Mysteries, is P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye (below) a 12-year-old detective who is half Sioux and half White, and definitely somewhere on the Asperger's spectrum. Of course, in the 1860's the syndrome had not yet been diagnosed and had no name. P.K.'s 'Thorn' is not being able to determine what people are feeling.
My Gift is that I am real smart about certain things. I can read & write and do any sum in my head. I can speak American & Lakota and also some Chinese & Spanish. I can shoot a gun & I can ride a pony with or without a saddle. I can track & shoot & skin any game and then cook it over a self-sparked fire. I know how to cure a headache with a handful of weeds. I can hear a baby quail in the sage-brush or a mouse in the pantry. I can tell what a horse has been eating just by the smell of his manure. I can see every leaf on a cottonwood tree. But here is my Problem: I cannot tell if a person’s smile is genuine or false. I can only spot three emotions: happiness, fear & anger. And sometimes I even mix those up.

When we're feeling lonely or obsessive or have made a particularly big social gaffe, many of us probably wonder if it's because we are somewhere on the Asperger's scale. I think that's why these dysfunctional characters are so popular, they are like us, only more extreme. I myself often find people completely unreadable. What I wouldn't give to be able to glance at a person and - like Sherlock Holmes - know instantly who they are and what they are feeling! That's one reason I created P.K. Pinkerton.

[The Case of the Deadly Desperados features stagecoach action in the very first chapters. This Western Mystery for kids aged 9 - 90 is available in hardback, Kindle and audio download. It will be published by Putnam's in the USA in February 2012.]

Advice from "Old Timers"

How do you research the Western genre when you live in London?

Last month my husband and I attended the Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival. One of the best things about it was meeting lots of other Western movie fans. All of them were friendly and all of them gave us advice about things to do and see and places to visit.

We met Jerry and Sharon over the plaque of Graham Green on Newhall's Western Walk of fame. (Graham Greene played Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves). They gave us some recommendations. They told us to go to Durango, Colorado and ride in the open car of the Silverton Railroad. (above) "The nearby Indian ruins are stunning", said Jerry. "Like Mesa Verde." They also said we should visit Williams, Arizona. There is a train tour of two days and two nights with all meals included. "And watch out for the natural spike in Sedona, Arizona," said Jerry. "You have never seen red rocks like them."

Sharon's favorite Western film is Murphy's Romance, a rom-com with Sally Field and James Garner. Jerry likes The Shootist, John Wayne's last film. It was filmed partly on the Warner Brothers Western lot (no longer there) and partly in Carson City, Nevada, near the governor's mansion.

Waiting for the shuttle to take us to Melody Ranch Movie Studio's for an open-air showing of High Noon, I got talking to Sampitch Kid, named after a river that runs through Utah. We talked about firing cap and ball revolvers and he told me I should check out the Single Action Shooting Society: http://www.sassnet.com "The closest you'll get to the Old West short of a Time Machine." Dang, that looks like fun! You even get to choose your persona and a period name. Hmmm. Maybe I could be my great grandmother Corinne Prince: schoolmarm, quilter and buffalo-hunter.

Standing in line for grub at the movie night, I got talking to Western journalist Mark Bedor. I told him about my new Western detective series set in Virginia City, Nevada in the 1860's. "So why are you here at the Melody Ranch?" he asked me. "To get a sense of the smell and sound and feel of a western town," I said. "The light, for example. When you walk into a saloon your eyes need to adjust because it's so dim in there." When I mentioned the light, Mark got excited. "Yes," he said. "I recently did Cavalry School and we were riding on the plains of Montana. I've never seen light like that big sky." "Cavalry School?" I said. Mark nodded happily. "I spent a week riding with Custer for Cavalry School. You can't understand it until you've done it." He gave me the link for an article he wrote and told me the website: www.uscavalryschool.com


"But I don't know how to ride a horse," I said.

"You want to ride?" said Mark. "Go to White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, Arizona. They will match you with the right horse and at the end of a week you'll be cantering and galloping." (Horses of the White Stallion)

"I know your books are set in Virginia City, Nevada," he added. "But you should also visit the Virginia City in Montana. And Red Rock, Utah." Mark also recommended some reading: John Gray on Custer, a book called Apauk, Caller of Buffalo by John Willard Schultz and Trails Ploughed Under by Charlie Russell. Mark even took a photo of me in my new buckskins with Richard. (photo by Mark Bedor)

Later in the week I went to an elementary school to talk about my other history mystery series, The Roman Mysteries. The class teacher's father picked me up in Santa Clarita and while we were driving to Chino he told me about Oatman, Arizona, a town named after a young woman kidnapped by Indians. "You can see the real thing there," said Dave King. "Once I went into a saloon to use the facilities and there were old timers there propping up the bar like in those Westerns. You can also see donkeys roaming the streets." Apparently there is an egg-frying contest on July 4th every year. (www.oatmangoldroad.org)

Thanks, "Old Timers", we'll definitely ride the railroad, sign up for a week at White Stallion and visit Oatman!

Top 3 Westerns?

Which three Western movies do you think might be the most popular among real cowboys and cowboy re-enactors? Go on. Have a guess. Then read on.

I've just spent three days at the Melody Ranch Movie Studio with my husband Richard, researching my new series of kids' history mystery books, The Western Mysteries. This is the 17th year they've held the Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival and by all accounts it was bigger and better than ever. I chatted to lots of performers, re-enactors and fans and asked most of them what their favorite Western movie was.

I've already mentioned cowboy poets Yvonne Hollenbeck and Pat Richardson in my blog about Cowboy Poetry. Yvonne's favorite Western is Lonesome Dove and Pat's is High Noon. "Gary Cooper was a real cowboy," said Pat. "And they filmed a lot of that film right here on Melody Ranch."

On the last day of the festival, Sunday, Richard and I boarded the trolley at the La Quinta Inn to find a beautiful cowgirl: Miss Catherine Lane. She plays Belle Montana, heroine from dime novels of the 1880's. Her fave Western is The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. YES! That's mine, too.

On the trolley was also a passel of desperados from Tombstone. They are Law Dogs 'N Ladies, a tribute to the movie Tombstone. You'd think they all place Tombstone top but no. Susan plays Calamity Jane. Her fave Western is Quigley Down Under. Tim Fowler is Ike Clanton and his fave Western is Tombstone. Their son Kirk likes Lonesome Dove.

Other fans on the trolley voted: One for Lonesome Dove and one for High Noon.

When we got to Main Street I wandered over to a blacksmith who was personalizing horseshoes. I figured I'd better get one inscribed with the name of the hero from my new series, but blacksmith Wishbone Smith said "P.K. Pinkerton" was too long. While he was hammering out "P.K." on a pony-sized horse shoe, I asked him what his fave Western was. "Lonesome Dove," he replied without hesitation, and proceded to quote Robert Duvall's character Gus. His son's fave Western was Tombstone. I was beginning to detect a pattern here.

David Rainwater the fiddler couldn't choose between Tombstone or High Noon. Lasso expert Dave Thornbury's top flick is Tom Horn and black-clad, bullwhip wielding Doc Durden from Virginia City's is... you guessed it: Tombstone.

There was some great music at the festival: a Civil War Brass Band, Indian flutes, some great rock/blues and of course tons of Western music. Richard and I loved it all. I met Rich Hillworth waiting to hear Celtic Cowboys outside the California Stage on Main Street. He lives near Lancaster and used to drive mule trains across the desert. His fave Western is Lonesome Dove. David Matuszak was selling the "Bible of Western films", A Cowboy's Trail Guide to Westerns, but he loses points by saying Richard's fave Western, Little Big Man it wasn't a Western! David's fave Western is Red River. A fabulously dressed couple named Todd and Holly loved The Big Country and Tombstone, respectively.

Everybody was telling us to get the peach cobbler and bottomless coffee made by the Chuckwagon guys so we got a bowl to share and bought the tin mugs you can refill all day. The cobbler was yummy but the coffee had grounds at the bottom. Now I know why those cowboys in the Westerns always toss the last bit into the sagebrush. We sat at a table with Carol and Dave, who told us about Cowboy Church! It was held that morning at 8.00 and they had some good ol' gospel cowboy worship. Too bad we missed it. They also meet the first Friday of every month at their pastor's ranch in Agua Dulce near the amazing Vasquez Rocks. Carol's fave Western is Tombstone and his is (the newer) 3.10 to Yuma.

By now I was pretty sure of the winner. On our way down Main Street the last time I did a double take. Was that Robert Duvall? Nope. It was Gus Curry. His fave Western? Lonesome Dove of course. He posed for me with the tastefully attired Mary Culver, who loves High Noon. Despite her vote, I think Lonesome Dove was definitely the top Western, followed very closely by Tombstone. High Noon came in a respectable third, according to my very unofficial and random poll.

So here is the answer to the question I posed:

Top Western?
1. Lonesome Dove
2. Tombstone
3. High Noon

The Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival was fabulous and we will be coming back next year, hopefully with lots of copies of the first book in my new series, The Case of the Counterfeit Injuns!

P.S. I forgot to put up a picture of a delicious couple of other Tombstone re-enactors, bad boy Nathan and hurdy girl Colleen. Nathan wears dark blue glasses with a tiny mirror in one corner so he can see who's sneaking up behind him! (I didn't mention to Nathan that buffalo soldier Victor Williams told me blue sunglasses were worn by those suffering from V.D.) No prizes for guessing Nathan and Colleen's fave Western... But Lonesome Dove still moseys in at the top place.

Cowboy Poetry

What is Cowboy Poetry?

Yvonne Hollenbeck

I'm in the lobby of La Quinta Inn in Newhall, California, waiting for a shuttle to take me to Melody Ranch open weekend - research for my new Western Mysteries - and I am suddenly surrounded by cowboy poets. Fair enough: the official name of the Melody Ranch and Movie Studio Open Weekend is the Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival.

So I ask a lady on my right. "What is Cowboy Poetry?"

She is Yvonne Hollenbeck, entertainer, author and 'Cowgirl Poet of the Year'. (http://www.cowboypoetry.com)

"Well," she says, "cowboy poetry talks about cowdogs, horses, the western way of life, in poetry."

'So it's like Country Western music without the without the music?" I ask.

"And without the country," says Andy Nelson, who is sitting behind her. He is a cowboy poet who has the 'Clear Out West' radio show and has written a book called Riding With Jim.

"We like to think our poetry can stand on its own", says Yvonne. "Some times the best song is a bad poem set to music. I'm quoting Sting," she adds.

On my left is Pat Richardson. He writes poetry, does his own illustrations and is a popular performer on the cowboy poetry circuit, along with Yvonne and Andy. He gives me a signed copy of his book Unhobbled.

I flip through the book and my eye falls on a poem called 'Pony Eggs'. Apparently when Pat was a little boy, longing for his own horse, his dad told him coconuts were pony eggs. "You'll notice they got hair and fur on them, and when they hatch out there'll be a pony in each one!" The poem tells how Pat got his 'revenge' many years later.

Another poem called Five Card Draw has this verse:

One night Ben had a full house,
Bet his saddle, spurs an' rope;
Zeke giggled at his foolishness
and raised three bars of soap.

That poem goes on for stanzas until a humorous and bloody ending.

According to Wikipedia, Cowboy Poetry was told around the campfire, with humor, rhyme and tall tales. I think of Mark Twain, and the tall tales that got him into such trouble in Virginia City.

What is surprising to me as I attend the Cowboy Festival is how popular Cowboy Poetry still is. Probably because in America ranching is still a major industry.

Later that day Richard and I are sitting in a sold out tent of maybe 700 people. Every third head in this place wears a cowboy hat. And most are real cowboy hats. We are all watching a white-mustached guy called Dave Stamey who is obviously a huge star on the cowboy poetry circuit. And deservedly. He is like a singing Sam Elliott: a brilliant musician whom everybody loves. Just outside the seating area, I see two young women gazing at him adoringly and mouthing the words of his songs, including "I'm not old, I just been used rough..." Wow. Imagine having groupies when you're in your 50's and not even Mick Jagger!

I'm sitting next to a woman from New Mexico. She tells me her husband wanted to come but it was his busy season and he had to visit some ranches.

"What does he do?" I ask.

Above the sound of the music it sounds like she says: "He shoots horses."

"WHAT?"

"He's a farrier," she says. "He shoes horses."

"Ah," I say. But already I am thinking: There's got to be a cowboy poem in that.

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High Noon at the Cowboy Festival

I've been looking forward to the Santa Clarita Cowboy festival for over a year. It's at the Melody Ranch where lots of famous Westerns were filmed, but it's only open one weekend a year.

We booked tickets online - our weekend pass was easy to get but the tours of the studio part of the ranch were sold out within the first hour. They only have places for 30 people. (Fix this, organizers!) We DID get tickets for the Movie Night. This is an outdoor showing of a classic Western at the end of main street, following dinner. Hmmm. What would that be like?

I booked us in to the La Quinta Inn, because they have a shuttle to and from the festival. Most people drive to a big car park behind the tracks on 13th Street in Newhall. It turns out that there is no shuttle from the hotel for the Friday Movie Night, but my iPhone tells me we can walk it in just under an hour. When I ask directions at the front desk the La Quinta Director of sales, Michelle Crawford, offers to drive us into Newhall. That's what I call service! It's just after 3.00pm and the weather is warm but not hot. California has been experiencing a cold snap. Michelle drives us to Newhall, which is a really boring name for this charming cowboy-flavored town. The William S. Hart ranch and park are here, plus a Cowboy Walk of Fame. The town should be called something more evocative like Coyote Flats or Buffalo Run. (There are some buffalo on the grounds of William S. Hart's estate).

Main Street is charming, with a very Mexican feel. Richard and I have a drink at the Trocadero, a new establishment among some older taquerias. Then we look for names we recognize on the Western Walk of Fame. Lots of names are unfamiliar but we know Powers Boothe from Deadwood, Bruce Boxleitner from Gods & Generals and Graham Greene from Dances with Wolves. While we are standing over this last plaque we get talking to a nice couple: he in cowboy hat, she in cowboy boots. We enthuse about Westerns for a while, then promise to look out for each other at the festival.

Richard and I wander down to peek into the William S. Hart park, just closing, then trek back to the shuttle pick-up spot for 6.30pm.

It is pretty easy to tell the other punters: most are wearing cowboy hats. I get chatting with Sampitch Kid, who has come all the way from Utah. Two Santa Clarita buses take about a hundred of us down some ranchy residential streets: Placerita Canyon, etc. Then through the gates of Melody Ranch, Spanish style of course, and here we are on the main street of a cowboy town. It looks great, with a bank, a jail, and plenty of saloons.

The sun is low in the sky. We line up to get our seat numbers, then bag a chair at our round, checkered tables and look around until movie time at 7.00. Merchants are already setting up. Pictures of horses, vintage wear, cowboy hats and a saddelry. Gary posed on one of his saddles. They are beautiful and they cost about $9000 a pop. Lots of work, leather and silver go into those.

Richard spots a buckskin dress and I can't resist trying it on. All right, I buyt it! I can do school events wearing it. They call us to dinner. This means getting in a long line but that is fine because you can get chatting to people. We met a fascinating journalist named Mark Bedor who was telling us all about his week learning to spend a week Custer's Cavalry. He also told us the best place to learn to ride a horse: White Stallion Dude Ranch, in Tucson, Arizona.

Food is a choice of chicken or beef, with nice yams, sauteed peppers and salad. Much nicer than any cowboy ever had on the range. The movie is High Noon, and it is introduced by Michael Blake, the son of Larry J Blake, in an uncredited role as the owner of the saloon where Gary Cooper punches a guy. He told us whenever he got bullied at school he would ride his bike home humming the theme to High Noon. It was one of the first films to use a theme throughout, and the famous ballad 'Do Not Forsake Me O My Darling' was in the charts even before the film came out.

(Here is a bit of trivia. Tex Ritter sang the song in the film but Frankie Lane had the hit.)

Everyone is quiet, almost reverent, as the film starts and although I saw about 30 frosted layer cakes for dessert, nobody makes a move to go and get a piece. We all want to watch the film. It is fun watching as people cheer and boo and everybody laughs at the end when a voice from one of the tables remarks 'You're supposed to clap and cheer at the end of a B Movie.'

We are all cold by now and hurry back down to the shuttle buses. Helpful volunteers wave the way with flashlights. Richard and I are the last ones to get on the first bus. 'Can anybody here give us a ride back to La Quinta Inn?' I say in a loud voice to the whole bus. I needn't have worried. Cowboys are all gentlemen.

Shooting Soap

Every historical author needs at least one good expert source. One of mine is 'Hawkeye', a British gun-dealer and expert on Civil War period firearms.

I recently sent him a few pages of my first Western Mystery, to make sure I had details of the guns right.

In the first Western Mystery, The Case of the Counterfeit Injuns, my hero gets shot with a Smith & Wesson seven-shooter. It's only a .22 but my hero is only a kid. So how much damage would it do? Would a slug from a .22 knock down a 12 year old if fired at close range? Would it pierce buckskin? Or just bounce off? Can you even call a .22 a slug? Shouldn't you call it a 'pea'? It's tiny! (above)

I sent the relevant pages to Hawkeye and he sent back this fascinating reply:

I did a little test for you myself. Taking 10 rounds of modern .22 short, I pulled out the bullets, tipped out the modern nitro powder & replaced it with 4 grains of fine black powder, then put the bullets back on top. Fired from the old Eureka - barrel length 2 1/2 inches, it penetrated 1 1/4 inches of pine at 6 yards range. At the same distance it penetrated a soft leather belt pinned to a new bar of soap and exited the rear of the soap through a large hole. In my opinion the Smith & Wesson No. 1 with its 3 inch barrel would perform almost identically.


(above: Hawkeye's 2 1/2 inch barrel Eureka)

Ouch! So the answer to my question is yes, you can call a .22 ball a 'slug' because it can pierce buckskin and make a nasty hole at close range!

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Get the bang right

I am having another fun session shooting cap & ball Colts today at a shooting club in South London. My mentor - let's call him Hawkeye - is sharing some secrets of how the movies get it all wrong.

1. There are five other shooters in our blind and I'm nearly deafened by the reports from their cap & ball revolvers (they are mostly .44s) even though I am wearing 'ear-defenders'. I remark on this to Hawkeye and mention The Proposition, a great Australian film which starts with a shootout where the gunshots sound like popguns. 'In films,' he says, 'they never get the bang right.' I jump as another deafening shot goes off behind me. 'And the more powder', says Hawkeye, 'the louder the bang. Also, more powder meant the ball would be more accurate. It's trajectory would be flatter.'

2. In the real wild West, they never held the gun sideways or with both hands. 'I think Hawaii Five-O is the first time you see cops holding a gun with two hands,' says Hawkeye. 'And the Pulp Fiction type holding it on its side is ridiculous. And what Jimmy Cagney does in the old films is criminal. He jerks the gun downwards as he fires.'

3. 'In my book,' I say, 'I have a ball from a .22 knock down my 12-year-old hero.' Hawkeye snorts. 'Even a shot from a .44 wouldn't throw you against the wall', he says. 'It would take a .50 calibre ball, from one of the big Sharpe's for example, to knock you down.'

4. Hawkeye says for a while there was a ridiculous fad for ricochets on American TV Westerns. (You know the kind of thing: B'dang! B'dang!) Hawkeye says lead balls go thunk. They don't bounce off things.

5. In For a Fistful of Dollars, a machine gun stands in for a gattling gun. Wrong! (I also noticed lots of ricochets in that film, too.)

6. In The Good, the Bad & the Ugly there is a delightful scene where Eli Wallach's Tuco (right) makes up a gun using the best parts from others. Wrong! (In his autobiography, The Good, The Bad, and Me, Wallach admits he was just riffing and having fun).

7. One bullet wouldn't necessarily have killed you.
Shooter: Bang!
Shootee: Argh! (slumps to ground, instantly dead.)
In actuality, one of the Younger Gang was shot 28 times... and lived long enough to witness the age of aviation. According to Hawkeye.

8. Cool leather holsters with matching cartridge belts? Not so common. Men often carried guns in their pockets or on a piece of string or in a sack. Many so called gunmen didn't even know how to fire a gun properly. Says Hawkeye.

9. In the film Winchester 73, Jimmy Stewart's character shoots a bullet through a washer tossed high in the air. Hawkeye scoffs at this, too. He says that might happen if the washer was stationary, but never while flying through the air.

10. Did they ever get it right? 'Yes,' says Hawkeye. 'In John Wayne's last film, The Shootist, he tells the boy that although the grouping of the bullets is important, a target never shoots back. The important thing is not to flinch.'

Note to self: In the Western Mysteries I should avoid ricochets, people slammed against walls or knocked over by slugs, single shot instant death, amazing accuracy, and most important of all, I must get the bang right!

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