"If Spenser and Hawk had been around when the West was wild, they'd have talked like Cole and Hitch." (Kirkus Reviews) They would. I love spending time in Bob Parker's worlds---all of them. This book is a gem of male marvelousness, complete with a hero "riding off into the sunset". But I've got the next one in the series, and I know it doesn't end there. 'Scuse me while I go see just what the hell Hitch thinks he's going to do now. (And if you haven't seen the movie yet, you should. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortenson are the best buddies since Newman and Redford.)
Review written November 2009 ( )

Nice Western novel. The story is good and the best of the book without a doubt is the characterization of Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. They have a very laconic way of talking to each other, each needing few words to understand the other.

The book is also written in that laconic style, and while it makes for a fast read, the thing is that I felt the story lacked depth. It was like watching the movie, only without images. Normally I enjoy a novel more than a movie in large part thanks to that extra depth that a movie can't aspire to. Since that was lacking here, I actually enjoyed the movie better.

Still, a nice story, great characters and an entertaining read. ( )

(2005)Parker's second western about 2 friends who team up as Appaloosa CO new marshall and deputy who are hired to protect the town from a local bully rancher. Pretty good tale.(PW)This is only Parker's second western, after the Wyatt Earp story Gunman's Rhapsody (or third if you count the Spenser PI quasi-western Potshot), but he takes command of the genre, telling an indelible story of two Old West lawmen. The chief one is Virgil Cole, new marshal of the mining/ranching town of Appaloosa (probably in Colorado); his deputy is Everett Hitch, and it's Hitch who tells the tale, playing Watson to Cole's Holmes. The novel's outline is classic western: Cole and Hitch take on the corrupt rancher, Randall Bragg, who ordered the killing of the previous marshal and his deputy. Bragg is arrested, tried and sentenced to be hung, but hired guns bust him out, leading to a long chase through Indian territory, a traditional high noon (albeit at 2:41 p.m.) shootout between Cole's men and Bragg's, a further escape and, at book's end, a final showdown. Along the way, Cole falls for a piano-playing beauty with a malevolent heart, whose manipulations lead to that final, fatal confrontation. With such familiar elements, Parker breaks no new ground. What he does, and to a magnificent degree, is to invest classic tropes with vigor, through depth of character revealed by a glance, a gesture or even silence. A consummate pro, Parker never tells, always shows, through writing that's bone clean and through a superb transferal of the moral issues of his acclaimed mysteries (e.g., the importance of honor) to the western. This is one of Parker's finest.

(AUDIO). A classic western story. Bad-ass sheriff and his trusty side-kick come into a lawless town to protect the citizens from the evil robber baron wanting to take over the town. The hero isn't necessarily a white-hat hero, he's not above shooting first and asking questions later. His life is complicated by his cowboy lifestyle and his new love for the beautiful local widow. Classic, pretty good short read. ( )

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. ( )