Western

A bittersweet end to my last novel that I will ever read by Robert Parker. It is about a 2.5 star book but honestly I only read it because I wanted to read Parker and it was quick. I’ll probably try the continuation of the series written by another writer because I like the characters but there really wasn’t much of a book here. ( )

NOTE: This review applies to all four books written by Robert B. Parker.

I've read all of Parker's Spenser series featuring a private eye in Boston, but I'd never tackled his series of Westerns despite being a fan of the genre. I'm really glad I did! These are some of the best books I've read this year.

The series revolves around Virgil Cole, a legendary gunfighter, and his sidekick Everett Hitch, who narrates the books. In Appaloosa, Cole and Hitch end up in the town of the book's title and become the town marshals. What ensues is classic Western: a fight with a corrupt rancher, a doomed romance with a woman of questionable repute, and a final climactic showdown that sends the pair of lawmen on their separate paths, though with no animosity between them.

Resolution is the town that Hitch washes up in after he and Cole part, where he finds work as a saloon bouncer and ends up being the town's de facto marshal. Things get complicated quickly, and his old buddy Cole shows up just in time to help him get the best of the bad guys.

Brimstone is the next town on the duo's journey. They are back together and searching for Allie, the wayward woman who snared Cole in the first book, only to prove less than stalwart. They find Allie, and Cole sets out to learn whether he can forgive her trespasses. Meanwhile, he and Hitch try to head off trouble between a corrupt saloon owner and a fiery evangelist preacher.

Blue-Eyed Devil is the final book in the series, and finds the Cole/Hitch duo back in Appaloosa, the setting of the first book. Along for the ride are Allie and a young orphaned, traumatized teenager who will only talk to Cole. As if that wasn't enough trouble for one gunman, he and Hitch also have to contend with the new marshal in town and his 12-man posse and renegade Indians. ( )

And after a few years of traveling (mainly chasing Allie), Cole and Hitch are back in Appaloosa when we first met them. While they were away, the town ha grown and now it has a police department (with a lot of employees) and the police chief Amos Callico seems to be keeping the peace well enough. At least on the surface that is.

Before long the truth emerges - Callico and his police department are indeed very good - as long as you pay them to protect you. The business owners who do not want to be pay are on their own - so they decide to hire Cole and Hitch instead - which the police chief really dislikes.

Then Pony Flores, the half-Mexican, half-Indian who helped to save Laurel and her mother back in Brimstone shows up with his half-brother who is in a bit of a trouble - a "killing a few people and robbing a train" kind of trouble. Staying in town is not possible but Cato and Rose are still in Resolution so Pony and his brother hide there for awhile. Until someone talks too much (and if you had been reading the series, you know that the someone is Allie).

Appaloosa burns - Callico is so sure that he knows better that he decides not to listen to Cole and lets Indians attack the town. But that fact does not stop the police chief for taking credit for the saved lives and things get complicated. Add a young man who dies because he is too drunk to realize that pulling a gun on Virgil Cole is a bad idea and a grieving father who hires a gunman to revenge the death and there are way too many people with guns and different agendas. Except that agendas shift.

The novel feels like a series wrap up - we see again pretty much everyone from the previous books, the story of Laurel finds a sort of a resolution and at the end Cole and Hitch are exactly where they started at the beginning of the first book (except for Allie - she is here to stay despite all of her shortcomings; as usual for Parker, once one of his leads falls in love, they get obsessed).

And somewhere in the middle of all the action and returning heroes, there is an underlying conversation about what law is in the territories and if justice and law are the same. Parker's books are often called simplistic and they can be viewed that way but there is usually some depth in them, even in these late books.

It is written in the usual Parker style - a lot of dialog, short sentences and quick action. And it made me wonder again what this series could have become if he had started it when he was at his best. But still - the 4 novels in this series are worth a read - not sure how well it will work for western fans but if you are coming from the other Parker's series, you may be pleasantly surprised.

The series is continued by Robert Knott. I am rarely enthusiastic for this kind of continuations but some of the other writers who continued the other Parker series had been pretty good at that so I plan to check at least the first books. ( )

Generally speaking, I enjoy the Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch novels. The writing style is easy going. The books are short and are a breeze to read. More often than not, the plots are compelling as well. Those elements are all present in Blue-Eyed Devil. Cole and Hitch are back in Appaloosa but this time they find themselves on the opposite side of the law since the new chief of police is an amoral, power hungry man named Amos Calico. Although, they don’t specifically try to oppose him, it becomes clear as the novel progresses that they will ultimately wind up on opposite sides of the gun barrel.

Although I generally liked this novel, there were some shortcomings. Allie continues to be a very unlikeable character. The bigger issue is that Cole and Hitch are almost like superheroes. They don’t have any actual super powers but they are so highly skilled with guns, that they achieve their goals with any real difficulty. In this case, the deck was stacked against them numbers wise, and they came up with a good plan, but they still prevailed without breaking much of a sweat. That’s the real downfall of these novels. I know how it’s going to end, and it’s never too difficult for them when it gets down to a gunfight, and it always ultimately does. If you like the series, you’ll like this novel, but there is a little something that’s lacking.

Carl Alves – author of The Invocation ( )