Appaloosa, Robert B. Parker, Book

Synopsis

A richly imagined novel of the Old West, as spare and vivid as a high plains sunset, from one of the world's most talented performers.

It was a long time ago, now, and there were many gunfights to follow, but I remember as well as I remember anything the first time I saw Virgil Cole shoot. Time slowed down for him. Always steady, and never fast . . .

When it comes to writing, Robert B. Parker knows no boundaries. From the iconic Spenser detective series and the novels featuring Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone, to the groundbreaking historical novel Double Play, Parker's imagination has taken readers from Boston to Brooklyn and back again. In Appaloosa, fans are taken on another trip, to the untamed territories of the West during the 1800s.

When Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch arrive in Appaloosa, they find a small, dusty town suffering at the hands of renegade rancher Randall Bragg, a man who has so little regard for the law that he has taken supplies, horses, and women for his own and left the city marshal and one of his deputies for dead. Cole and Hitch, itinerant lawmen, are used to cleaning up after opportunistic thieves, but in Bragg they find an unusually wily adversary-one who raises the stakes by playing not with the rules, but with emotions.

This is Robert B. Parker at his storytelling best.

Publishers Weekly

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 total command of the genre, telling a galloping tale 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 story, 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 hanged, 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 dramatic 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 in play, Parker breaks no new ground. But that's irrelevant. What he does do, and to magnificent effect, is invest classic tropes with fresh vigor, revealing depth of character by a glance, a gesture or even silence. As always, the writing is bone clean. With Appaloosa Parker manages to translate his signature themes (honor among men) from the mean streets to the wild west in one of his finest books to date. Agent, Helen Brann. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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Biography

Featuring rapid-fire dialogue and spicy characters, Robert B. Parker's books are top-shelf reading for fans of detective crime novels. His Spenser series is several titles strong and an established classic; lately Parker has raised the stakes with two additional series (one featuring private eye Sunny Randle, the other featuring police chief Jesse Stone) that may eventually rival his beloved Boston P.I.

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Customer Reviews

Number of Reviews: 8
Average Rating:
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Appaloosa Follows The Western Formula
A reviewer, A reviewer, 01/04/2007

A famous author once said, 'Write what you know.' Robert B. Parker, for the most part, has done just that in writing so many mysteries over the years. However, with this story, Parker has finally found success in a completely different genre. While his first attempt at a Western fell short of expectations, this one has definitely met them, and then some. Parker follows the formula for a true Western 'to a T'. It is the classic story of two lamen who come to clean up a town that is being run by the classic Western villian in Randall Bragg. The one downside to this story is the writing style. There is a lot of 'he said' 'She said' 'they said', etc., even when characters are asking questions. Perhaps this is Parker trying to mimic something from that era. Perhaps it is hiw own writing style. But that aside, he has stil written a piece that any purist fan of Westerns will thoroughly enjoy.

Seldom read westerns
Roy Bowman (bowmanreadgroup@yahoo.com) , an avid reader, about 50 books a ye, 07/15/2006

As the headline suggest I rarely read westerns but liking Robert Parker I decided to give it a chance. I admit I was not disappointed and read it in one sitting. It has a noncomplicated theme so if you are lokking for a complex story you won't find it. The chaacters are interesting as is the story. If you have never read westerns or don't like them this one may change your mind.

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Fact File

Name:
Robert B. Parker

Current Home:
Boston, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:
September 17, 1932

Place of Birth:
Springfield, Massachusetts

Education:
B.A. in English, Colby College, 1954; M.A., Ph. D. in English, Boston University, 1957, 1971

Awards:
Edgar Award for Promised Land, 1977; Grand Master Edgar from Mystery Writers of America, 2002

Biography

Robert B. Parker began as a student of hardboiled crime writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler; but when he became a crime writer himself, he was one of the rare contemporary authors to be considered on par with his predecessors. The Spenser series, featuring a Boston-based ex-boxer and ex-cop, has become one of the genre's most respected and popular fixtures since Parker began writing it in the early �70s.

Noted for their sharp dialogue and fine character development, the Parker books carry on a tradition while updating it, giving the hero two strong alter egos in Hawk, a black friend and right-hand man; and Susan Silverman, Spenser's psychologist love interest. Parker's inclusion of other races and sexual persuasions (several of his novels feature gay characters, a sensibility strengthened in Parker through his sons, both of whom are gay) have given a more modern feel to the cases coming into Spenser's office.

The Spenser series, which began with 1973's The Godwulf Manuscript, has an element of toughness that suits its Boston milieu; but it delves just as often into the complex relationship between Silverman and Spenser, and the interplay between the P.I. and Hawk. Parker's interest in exploring relationships, particularly Spenser's romantic life, earns varying responses depending on how much the critic prefers the old lone-wolf style of crime writing.

By the late �80s, Parker had acquired such a reputation that the agent for Raymond Chandler's estate tapped him to finish the legend's last book, Poodle Springs. It was a thankless mission bound to earn criticism, but Parker carried off the task well, thanks to his gift for to-the-point writing and deft plotting. "Parker isn't, even here, the writer Chandler was, but he's not a sentimentalist, and he darkens and deepens Marlowe," the Atlantic concluded. In 1991, Parker took a second crack at Chandler with the Big Sleep sequel Perchance to Dream.

Parker has taken detours from Spenser in the last few years, creating new series. In 1999, Family Honor introduced a female Boston private eye that Parker created with actress Helen Hunt in mind, Sunny Randall. Two years earlier, he introduced L.A.-to-New England cop transplant Jesse Stone in Night Passage. He is also the author of several stand-alone novels that have been well-received by his many fans.

Good to Know

Parker's thesis in graduate school was a study of the private eye in literature that centered on Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Ross MacDonald. Critics would later put him in the same category as those authors.

Parker's main hero is named for Edmund Spenser, the 16th-century author of The Faerie Queene.

Parker had a hand in writing the scripts for some television adaptations of Spenser books starring Robert Urich, who also played Spenser in the ABC series from 1985-88. Urich suffered a battle with cancer and passed away in 2002, but adaptations continue to be made for A&E, starring Joe Mantegna. Parker approved of the new actor, telling the New York Times: ''I looked at Joe and I saw Spenser."

According to a profile in the New York Times, Parker met his wife Joan when the two were toddlers at a birthday party. The two reconnected as freshmen at Colby College and eventually had two sons. They credit the survival of their marriage to a house split into separate living spaces, so that the two can enjoy more independent lives than your average husband and wife.

Parker told fans in a 1999 Barnes & Noble.com chat that he thought his non-series historical novel All Our Yesterdays was "the best thing I've ever written."

Parker had a small speaking part in the 1997 A&E adaptation of Small Vices. How does he have time to write his Spenser books, plus the other series and the adaptation stuff? "Keep in mind, it takes me four or five months to write a novel, which leaves me a lot of time the rest of the year," he told Book magazine. "I don't like to hang around."

From the Publisher

A richly imagined novel of the Old West, as spare and vivid as a high plains sunset, from one of the world's most talented performers.

It was a long time ago, now, and there were many gunfights to follow, but I remember as well as I remember anything the first time I saw Virgil Cole shoot. Time slowed down for him. Always steady, and never fast . . .

When it comes to writing, Robert B. Parker knows no boundaries. From the iconic Spenser detective series and the novels featuring Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone, to the groundbreaking historical novel Double Play, Parker's imagination has taken readers from Boston to Brooklyn and back again. In Appaloosa, fans are taken on another trip, to the untamed territories of the West during the 1800s.

When Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch arrive in Appaloosa, they find a small, dusty town suffering at the hands of renegade rancher Randall Bragg, a man who has so little regard for the law that he has taken supplies, horses, and women for his own and left the city marshal and one of his deputies for dead. Cole and Hitch, itinerant lawmen, are used to cleaning up after opportunistic thieves, but in Bragg they find an unusually wily adversary-one who raises the stakes by playing not with the rules, but with emotions.

This is Robert B. Parker at his storytelling best.

Publishers Weekly

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 total command of the genre, telling a galloping tale 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 story, 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 hanged, 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 dramatic 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 in play, Parker breaks no new ground. But that's irrelevant. What he does do, and to magnificent effect, is invest classic tropes with fresh vigor, revealing depth of character by a glance, a gesture or even silence. As always, the writing is bone clean. With Appaloosa Parker manages to translate his signature themes (honor among men) from the mean streets to the wild west in one of his finest books to date. Agent, Helen Brann. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Best known for his Spenser novels (e.g., Cold Service), popular author Parker likes to break out of the mystery genre once in a while. In this Western (the second after Gunman's Rhapsody), deputy Everett Hitch recounts the struggle between lawman Virgil Cole and outlaw rancher Randall Bragg for control of the little town of Appaloosa. Modeled on Wyatt Earp, Cole is the kind of man who never loses a fight, and he comes close to taking down the murderous Bragg with ease, until Bragg's hired guns rescue him by abducting Cole's romantic interest and using her as a hostage. This precipitates a long chase, a struggle with wandering Kiowa, and a gunfight reminiscent of the OK Corral. The story gallops along to a surprise ending, but beneath the trappings of this gunfighter novel, Parker really has something to say about the nature of men and women in the Old West. Highly recommended for all fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/05.]-Ken St. Andre, Phoenix P.L. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

If Spenser and Hawk had been around when the West was wild, they'd have talked like Cole and Hitch. The dialogue shines with a Western drawl in this admirably plotted change of pace from Parker (Double Play, 2004, etc.). Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch ride into Appaloosa, Colts slung serviceably low, and are instantly spotted for what they are: town tamers. "They're living off us like coyotes off a buffalo carcass," complains the Appaloosa establishment, meaning a ruthless no-good named Randall Bragg and the hands he employs on his ranch. Their sins include whisky and food consumed but never paid for, horses "borrowed" and not returned, women commandeered whenever. More recently, the marshal and one of his deputies were gunned down in cold blood. Do Cole and Hitch want to replace them? "It's what we do," says Hitch. Marshal Cole and Deputy Hitch then set about posting their rules, the same rules that had transformed Gin Springs, for instance, from a wide-open hellhole to a paradigm of civic virtue. Check your firearms at the town limits, Bragg and his hard-cases are ordered. They obey, though of course it requires a tactical killing or two before the rules are accepted as binding. Enter Mrs. Allison French, a woman more beautiful and more complex than is good for the general peace. Cole is smitten-and awed. "Takes a bath every evenin," he tells his partner. Having seen more of the world than the parochial Cole, West Point graduate Hitch is cautious. Does a dangerous seductress lurk behind the fetching facade? Into town ride the Shelton brothers, quick, mean gunmen several notches above the ordinary. Bragg reappears in the guise of a community booster: slick, plausible and dazzling to shortmemories. Pervading it all is the winsome widow lady's private agenda. Wonderful stuff: notch 51 for Parker.

Customer Reviews

Number of Reviews: 8
Average Rating:
Write a Review

Showing 1-5 Next

Appaloosa Follows The Western Formula
A reviewer, A reviewer, 01/04/2007

A famous author once said, 'Write what you know.' Robert B. Parker, for the most part, has done just that in writing so many mysteries over the years. However, with this story, Parker has finally found success in a completely different genre. While his first attempt at a Western fell short of expectations, this one has definitely met them, and then some. Parker follows the formula for a true Western 'to a T'. It is the classic story of two lamen who come to clean up a town that is being run by the classic Western villian in Randall Bragg. The one downside to this story is the writing style. There is a lot of 'he said' 'She said' 'they said', etc., even when characters are asking questions. Perhaps this is Parker trying to mimic something from that era. Perhaps it is hiw own writing style. But that aside, he has stil written a piece that any purist fan of Westerns will thoroughly enjoy.

Seldom read westerns
Roy Bowman (bowmanreadgroup@yahoo.com), an avid reader, about 50 books a ye, 07/15/2006

As the headline suggest I rarely read westerns but liking Robert Parker I decided to give it a chance. I admit I was not disappointed and read it in one sitting. It has a noncomplicated theme so if you are lokking for a complex story you won't find it. The chaacters are interesting as is the story. If you have never read westerns or don't like them this one may change your mind.

Why Bother
Stan H, A reviewer, 06/07/2006

What a disappointing story. I found the book depressing, I had no empathy for ANY of the characters, and found myself not caring about anyone in the book. The book was lifeless. I was curious about one thing. Was the name of the bad guy, Randall Bragg, a play on the name of Stephen King's superb villain, Randall Flagg? Bragg can't touch Flagg as a villain.

Also recommended:�Just about anything Parker has written.

No research and no knowledge
H. Lon Harper (TXS-ALAMO@hotmail.com), an exTexas lawman, lawyer and Judge, 05/18/2006

This book was a pain to read. The grammar and vocabulary used by the characters was something from 'Deadwood'. People did not speak like these 'heros' in the old west. A second generation West Point graduate would be unlikely to use, 'ain't' and other words, expressions and grammar more likely to come from the mouth of some uneducated hick. The author's knowledge about firearms was completely lacking. You don't open and close the cylinder of a single action Colt. A rifle fits in a scabbard, not a sheath. A 10 gage shotgun exists, but an 8 gage would have been impossible to find, even if you could invent the ammo. A badly researched book. Mr. Parker must have gotten his dialog and plot from some 'B' movie. Two thumbs down!

Ehh
A reviewer, A reviewer, 07/16/2005

Appaloosa was a fun, quick read. It was entertaining at the most. I found that I didn't have a connection with any of the characters in the story. The descriptions of events, and settings were poor. And it seemed like Parker got sick of writing and decided to end it in the last page. All in all, I recommend this book if you are looking for a quick read, and are not looking to get into a story. It was entertaining, I will give it that much.

Showing 1-5 Next

Product Details

ISBN: 0425204324
ISBN-13: 9780425204320
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 320pp
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Pub. Date: June 2006
Edition Description: Reprint
Sales Rank: 9,820

Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker

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