From Publishers Weekly
Parker applies his customary vigor to this sequel to
Appaloosa (2005), in a sparse, bullet-riddled rumination on law and order, friendship and honor. Narrator and hired gun Everitt Hitch takes a job as lookout in Amos Wolfson's Blackfoot Saloon and, in short order, guns down local upstart Koy Wickman and stands up for the town's beleaguered prostitutes. Without fully intending it, he creates a haven of orderliness amid the chaos of sheriff-less Resolution. But larger forces are at work as Eamon O'Malley, competing with Wolfson for control of Resolution, hires freelance thugs Cato and Rose to replace Wickman. Lest Everitt end up outnumbered, his old friend Virgil Cole turns up just as Wolfson and O'Malley amass armies for a decisive battle. Wolfson's army turns out to be the more unsavory and dishonorable, winning the day against O'Malley—but Virgil, Everitt, Cato and Rose are prepared to settle things the honorable way. Though the plot meanders its way to a too-fast climax, Parker's dialogue is snappy and his not-a-word-wasted scenes suit this Spartan western.
(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--Ce texte provient de la
Hardcover
édition.
Product Description
The New York Times-bestselling author's richly imagined work of historical fiction: a powerful tale of the Old West from the acknowledged master of crime fiction.
I had an eight-gauge shotgun that I'd taken with me when I left Wells Fargo. It didn't take too long for things to develop. I sat in the tall lookout chair in the back of the saloon with the shotgun in my lap for two peaceful nights. On my third night it was different. I could almost smell trouble beginning to cook . . . ."
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. It's the kind of town that doesn't 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 Wolfson's Blackfoot Saloon and quickly establishes his position as protector of the ladies who work the backrooms-as well as a man unafraid to stand up to the enforcer sent down from the O'Malley 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 O'Malley threatens the loose coalition of local ranchers and starts buying up Resolution's few businesses, Hitch and Cole find themselves in the middle of a makeshift war between O'Malley's men and the ranchers. In a place where law and order don't exist, Hitch and Cole must make their own, guided by their sense of duty, honor, and friendship.
--Ce texte provient de la
Hardcover
édition.