Streets of Laredo [Mass Market Paperback]

Those who have been waiting, through several comparatively disappointing novels, for an appropriate sequel to the memorable and Pulitzer-winning Lonesome Dove can take heart. Streets of Laredo continues that epic of the waning years of the Texas Rangers with all the narrative drive and elegiac passion of its forerunner. Captain Woodrow Call, Gus Macrae's old partner from Lonesome Dove , is long in the tooth but still a legendary hunter of outlaws when he is called upon by the head of one of the railroads now crisscrossing frontier territory to bring to book a young Mexican train robber and killer, Joey Garza. Accompanied by an inappropriate railroad accountant from Brooklyn, a reluctant Texas deputy and gangling, awkward Pea Eye Parker (who is trying to give up the Ranger life and settle down to farming and family with the lovely ex-whore Lorena), Call sets off, roaming the border country in his competent, unassuming fashion. Along the way he manages to slay Mox Mox, a fellow whose specialty is burning his victims alive, but with his arthritic fingers and failing eyes Call is no match for the alert, ice-cold Garza. How Pea Eye eventually gets his man, and how Call, terribly injured, slips into the shadows is the stuff of this sprawling but minutely detailed yarn. As before, McMurtry's empathic way with strong women--Lorena as well as Garza's gallant but despairing mother Maria--is as beguiling as is his way of bringing to life both dark-dyed villains and courtly heroes. As in some great 19th-century saga, the story has more than its share of improbable coincidences--people meeting fortuitously in thousands of square miles of empty territory, hearing vital news at appropriate and inappropriate moments--but these seem only mild contrivances to shape a story packed with action, terror, humor and pathos. Laredo is a fitting conclusion to a remarkable feat of reconstruction and sheer storytelling genius. 375,000 first printing; Doubleday Book Club main selection; Literary Guild alternate.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

In this sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove ( LJ 7/85), McMurtry once again uses the plainest of prose to tell a story that seems at once to be, for lack of any other word, a classic. Captain Call, now an old man, is hired by the railroad to hunt down a young train robber from Mexico named Joey Garza, who was raised by Apaches and who strikes targets well into Texas. The cast of characters includes a Yankee accountant sent to keep track of Call's expenses and Pea Eye, Call's longtime deputy, now settled down to a farming life with Lorena, a former prostitute who is the region's schoolteacher. As always, McMurtry somehow imbues even the least significant of his characters with individuality, and the notorious Judge Roy Bean and John Wesley Hardin make appearances. McMurtry unflinchingly explores the human capacity for evil and heroism in the face of it. Essential for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/93.
- David Dodd, Benicia P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.