Sunday, June 22, 2008

#26: Resolution by Robert B. Parker

Hard-bitten follow-up to Parker's western Appaloosa features our two tarnished but honorable former lawmen, Virgil and Everett, getting caught up in a war between farmers, miners, and townspeople in a fledgling town.

Robert B. Parker's latest has the trappings of a standard oater but is written in an engaging style with interesting characters. The easygoing Everett Hitch is our narrator, watching as his friend Virgil Cole, legendary with a gun but susceptible to the p-whip, struggles with morality after shooting a man in anger.

I was eager to find this sequel and read it at a very fast clip. To say Parker wrote this one in a laconic style is an understatement. The chapters are short and the dialogue terse, to say the least. A very muscular Western, and apparently one more is on the way to make a trilogy. I have always liked Parker's Spenser detective novels and this is a nice change of pace.

I checked this one out from the Farmland Public Library.

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