Western

(2008)2nd in western series that is very readable and good story of Virgil & Emmitt who are hired as saloon bouncers in a town with no law men, who become the defacto law in town along with two other gunmen.(bookjacket)After the bloody confrontation in Appaloosa, Everett Hitch heads into the afternoon sun and ends up in Resolution, an Old West town so new the dust has yet to settle. Its the kind of town that doesnt have much in the way of commerce, except for a handful of saloons and some houses of ill repute. Hitch takes a job as lookout at Amos Wolfsons Blackfoot Saloon and quickly establishes his position as protector of the ladies who work the backroomsas well as a man unafraid to stand up to the enforcer sent down from the OMalley copper mine.Though Hitch makes short work of hired gun Koy Wickman, tensions continue to mount, so that even the self-assured Hitch is relieved by the arrival in town of his friend Virgil Cole. When greedy mine owner Eamon OMalley threatens the loose coalition of local ranchers and starts buying up Resolutions few businesses, Hitch and Cole find themselves in the middle of a makeshift war between OMalleys men and the ranchers. In a place where law and order dont exist, Hitch and Cole must make their own, guided by their sense of duty, honor, and friendship.

Robert B. Parker is enjoyable if formulaic. I have not read any of the other novels in this series. I enjoyed this Western even though I recognize that it was a twentieth century interpretation of the Old West (or as Commander Worf called it, the Ancient West). But even at that, it is still alien to modern society.

The heroes, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, inhabit a lawless world where the law is only as good as the people who make it up as they go along. If you think about that while you read this book, you realize that whether somebody wears a badge in this novel or not does not make them a real lawman. In the town of Resolution (we do not know where it is or where we are, except that it evidently isn't in Texas), the biggest landowner hires the sheriff, so the law works for him.

Cole and Hitch regard the sanctity of the law accordingly, sometimes being on the side of the big owner and sometimes against his interests. They shoot people or take pity on them according to their whims, which are relatively decent whims compared to most of the people they encounter.

Hitch is a West Point graduate (or drop out, I forget) who admits that he used to talk like one but has given that up to sound more like a cowboy. He can be kind or ruthless depending on whom he is dealing with. He is hired to be the guard in a saloon. (He is really a bouncer except that the customers are apt to be armed, so he is too.) He tries to avoid bloodshed, but when the owner of the saloon across the street sends a gunslinger to cause trouble in Hitch's work place, Hitch doesn't hesitate to shoot.

Hitch also has a soft spot for the prostitutes and offers them protection when men abuse them. Like his friend Cole, Hitch believes that men who abuse women are not real men.

Cole reminds me of Sam Elliott, the actor who has played so many movie cowboys. Soft spoken and laid back, but with a tough, no-nonsense demeanor. (Maybe Parker had Elliott in mind, too.) Cole is an experienced gunslinger who has worked on both sides of the law. He is not as formally educated as Hitch but has read a book or two. The funniest part of the novel is his philosophical dialogues with Hitch. There is something preternatural as they discuss ideas such as the essential goodness of man. It is Cole who points out that whatever "essentially" means, an awful lot of the men they have met in their line of work have generally not been good.

Cole also has a penchant for malapropisms - using the wrong word for things. At one point, someone asks Cole what he is looking at. "Our adversities," he says. "Adversaries," Hitch corrects him. Cole just says "yes" whenever Hitch corrects him. He does not otherwise acknowledge that he has made a mistake. Hitch, whose is the narrative voice, claims that Cole never makes that same mistake again, once corrected.

This book hits all of the cliches of the Western, though it cannot do all of them the justice of extended treatment. There is a lot about one-horse boom-towns, saloons, six-shooters and shotguns, farmers, predatious businessmen, predatious gunslingers, and a little about predatious Native Americans who leave the reservation. These last are treated almost clinically, neither exploring their motives nor mourning their divers fates. ( )

First edition as new

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. ( )