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"The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune"
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“Oscar Tremont, Investigator of the Strange and Inexplicable.”
Oscar Tremont is a brilliant private eye with remarkable intelligence. He investigates all kinds of obscure matters, from seemingly impossible thefts and suspected cases of stalking, to ghostly apparitions and strange nocturnal happenings. Upon one of his many visits to Archives Fine Books, he finds a coded message scribbled inside a book from the local history section. Cracking the code reveals a mystery that involves deep rooted secrets linked to a couple of high profile families from his hometown, which involves missing treasure, blackmail, and a hidden curse. They don’t know it yet, but Mr. Tremont is on the beat to bring justice and crack the case.
Oscar Tremont is a brilliant private eye with remarkable intelligence. He investigates all kinds of obscure matters, from seemingly impossible thefts and suspected cases of stalking, to ghostly apparitions and strange nocturnal happenings. Upon one of his many visits to Archives Fine Books, he finds a coded message scribbled inside a book from the local history section. Cracking the code reveals a mystery that involves deep rooted secrets linked to a couple of high profile families from his hometown, which involves missing treasure, blackmail, and a hidden curse. They don’t know it yet, but Mr. Tremont is on the beat to bring justice and crack the case.
Readability
The overall narrative is fairly easy to follow, but the story contains a lot of unnecessary details that can seem jarring at times, like sharing all the street names. Seeing as how the novella opens up with a coded message, I was then under the impression that I needed to pay close attention to fine details throughout the read. Once I finished, I realized just how unnecessary many of the details were but nonetheless had me straining to comprehend their relevance while the plot was developing. For me it made the story a bit exhausting to get through and a tad annoying to realize the effort was in vain at the end. Details aside, the structure and pace was fine and minimal errors in the writing.
Creative Style
I really liked one specific aspect of “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune” that I found especially creative and engaging. That was the part where a coded message is discovered by the main character and the reader is taught a form of cipher. You are given the message as it appears to the main character and given an example of cipher along with some clues to help decode the message. I actually grabbed a pen and paper to see if I could figure out the message before reading on. Based on the rules and clues provided I came up with a cipher that looked as follows with the top row of letters representing the respective letters from the bottom row:
OXLEYZWVUTSRQPNMKJIHGFDCBA
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
At first I was a bit confused by the cipher encoded message, because the rules were vague but the examples provided enough clues to figure out what the author meant. The problem is that there was an error in the accuracy, “on the other hand, the words with two letters dn and uc made uo and iv respectively,” which was not true based on the example message that was decoded just two paragraphs later where dn & uc actually become wo & ix. The example validated the cipher above, but the author’s error did not break the story. This cipher comes up again later in the novella, but this little puzzle is not imperative for following the plot. However, I thought it was a fun little tidbit to get me engaged early on, but was the most mentally engaging aspect of the story that was somewhat relevant. Expanding on the writing style itself, I have to say that much of narrative is overwritten and telling. “Edgar sat upright and raised his eyebrows, wondering for an instant whether his leg was being pulled, but he could see that Oscar was serious.” This is a disengaging sentence, because I don’t get an opportunity to interpret what is going through the character’s mind based upon the action taking place. The meaning of the action is explained to me. Most of the time any action taken in this story is accompanied with an explanation. As the reader that can get boring. The difference between the show and tell is in how much is described verses what is left to reader interpretation and imagination. There wasn't much left to interpretation in this novella, which hurt the experience for me.
Delivery
I am told early and often in the story how intelligent Oscar Tremont is, with the side characters used to reinforce this narrative:
Edgar worked IT, so he was used to thinking logically, although he was yet to out-do his brilliant friend’s level of cognition.
When assertions like this are made to the reader it’s as though the author is setting characters up for disaster, because making such assertions robs the reader of agency to make up their own mind about the characters. In “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune” I am told how intelligent Oscar Tremont is, but given very few examples of brilliance and found more evidence which points to the contrary. For instance, the way he rationalizes breaking into a family’s home as a “moral obligation” based on a “bygone injustice”, that the family seemed unbothered by until he started meddling in their lives, is just insane. And then when he is inside, he comes across a teenage girl locked inside a room, sitting in a bed fastened with restraints, who he learns is “possessed” and seems completely unbothered by the situation as if keeping a minor locked away is normal behavior, because that's how normal people deal with their demons. He was more worried about finding some forgotten about family jewels unjustly taken away instead of getting a helpless girl (who was being unjustly held in captivity) some help. I almost dropped the story right then and there.
Oscar Tremont is not as intelligent as Cameron Trost makes him out to be in “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune”. The character uses goofy disguises, which made me laugh out loud. He is hailed as a savant, but is shown to be a creepy meddler whose expertise is only actually sought after once - by a woman whose earrings are missing. He cracks the case by essentially asking her where was the last place she had them, and then asking her to retrace her steps, only to discover that the broad is just mentally slow and had simply misplaced them. No jewel thief here. It’s a really poor character building scene. For a mystery, there was little to no suspense in this novella, and the action scenes were far few and mostly lacking in luster.
The overall narrative is fairly easy to follow, but the story contains a lot of unnecessary details that can seem jarring at times, like sharing all the street names. Seeing as how the novella opens up with a coded message, I was then under the impression that I needed to pay close attention to fine details throughout the read. Once I finished, I realized just how unnecessary many of the details were but nonetheless had me straining to comprehend their relevance while the plot was developing. For me it made the story a bit exhausting to get through and a tad annoying to realize the effort was in vain at the end. Details aside, the structure and pace was fine and minimal errors in the writing.
Creative Style
I really liked one specific aspect of “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune” that I found especially creative and engaging. That was the part where a coded message is discovered by the main character and the reader is taught a form of cipher. You are given the message as it appears to the main character and given an example of cipher along with some clues to help decode the message. I actually grabbed a pen and paper to see if I could figure out the message before reading on. Based on the rules and clues provided I came up with a cipher that looked as follows with the top row of letters representing the respective letters from the bottom row:
OXLEYZWVUTSRQPNMKJIHGFDCBA
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
At first I was a bit confused by the cipher encoded message, because the rules were vague but the examples provided enough clues to figure out what the author meant. The problem is that there was an error in the accuracy, “on the other hand, the words with two letters dn and uc made uo and iv respectively,” which was not true based on the example message that was decoded just two paragraphs later where dn & uc actually become wo & ix. The example validated the cipher above, but the author’s error did not break the story. This cipher comes up again later in the novella, but this little puzzle is not imperative for following the plot. However, I thought it was a fun little tidbit to get me engaged early on, but was the most mentally engaging aspect of the story that was somewhat relevant. Expanding on the writing style itself, I have to say that much of narrative is overwritten and telling. “Edgar sat upright and raised his eyebrows, wondering for an instant whether his leg was being pulled, but he could see that Oscar was serious.” This is a disengaging sentence, because I don’t get an opportunity to interpret what is going through the character’s mind based upon the action taking place. The meaning of the action is explained to me. Most of the time any action taken in this story is accompanied with an explanation. As the reader that can get boring. The difference between the show and tell is in how much is described verses what is left to reader interpretation and imagination. There wasn't much left to interpretation in this novella, which hurt the experience for me.
Delivery
I am told early and often in the story how intelligent Oscar Tremont is, with the side characters used to reinforce this narrative:
Edgar worked IT, so he was used to thinking logically, although he was yet to out-do his brilliant friend’s level of cognition.
When assertions like this are made to the reader it’s as though the author is setting characters up for disaster, because making such assertions robs the reader of agency to make up their own mind about the characters. In “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune” I am told how intelligent Oscar Tremont is, but given very few examples of brilliance and found more evidence which points to the contrary. For instance, the way he rationalizes breaking into a family’s home as a “moral obligation” based on a “bygone injustice”, that the family seemed unbothered by until he started meddling in their lives, is just insane. And then when he is inside, he comes across a teenage girl locked inside a room, sitting in a bed fastened with restraints, who he learns is “possessed” and seems completely unbothered by the situation as if keeping a minor locked away is normal behavior, because that's how normal people deal with their demons. He was more worried about finding some forgotten about family jewels unjustly taken away instead of getting a helpless girl (who was being unjustly held in captivity) some help. I almost dropped the story right then and there.
Oscar Tremont is not as intelligent as Cameron Trost makes him out to be in “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune”. The character uses goofy disguises, which made me laugh out loud. He is hailed as a savant, but is shown to be a creepy meddler whose expertise is only actually sought after once - by a woman whose earrings are missing. He cracks the case by essentially asking her where was the last place she had them, and then asking her to retrace her steps, only to discover that the broad is just mentally slow and had simply misplaced them. No jewel thief here. It’s a really poor character building scene. For a mystery, there was little to no suspense in this novella, and the action scenes were far few and mostly lacking in luster.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 4/10
The little cipher puzzle within the story is the only hidden gem that made “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune” worth the read for me. The narrative risked it all on Oscar Tremont ability to live up to what turned out to be a lot of hype early on in the novella. The demonic possession was absolutely random and felt out of place. The story is overwritten with little that is left for reader interpretation, although Oscar’s actions are shown to be more irresponsible than intelligent. I was never left wondering what was going to happen next, except for a brief moment when Oscar is tailed by stranger, but then turns into nothing serious. I think “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune: An Oscar Tremont Mystery” is a very low stakes story that is blown out of proportion and not without its own outtakes. Fortunately, Cameron Trost has produced an impressive catalog of fictional works for you to investigate for yourself and see what gems you can find. He has written short stories for compilations and anthologies as well as the action thriller novel “The Tunnel Runner”.
The little cipher puzzle within the story is the only hidden gem that made “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune” worth the read for me. The narrative risked it all on Oscar Tremont ability to live up to what turned out to be a lot of hype early on in the novella. The demonic possession was absolutely random and felt out of place. The story is overwritten with little that is left for reader interpretation, although Oscar’s actions are shown to be more irresponsible than intelligent. I was never left wondering what was going to happen next, except for a brief moment when Oscar is tailed by stranger, but then turns into nothing serious. I think “The Hunt for the Stayne Fortune: An Oscar Tremont Mystery” is a very low stakes story that is blown out of proportion and not without its own outtakes. Fortunately, Cameron Trost has produced an impressive catalog of fictional works for you to investigate for yourself and see what gems you can find. He has written short stories for compilations and anthologies as well as the action thriller novel “The Tunnel Runner”.
