More shifting allegiances, moral dilemmas and characters capable of change than Virgil and Everett’s fans may be used to....
Now that they’ve cleaned up Appaloosa, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch have to contend with its new police chief in their fourth and presumably final adventure.
All white men are blue-eyed devils, but Amos Callico is more infernal than most. No sooner has he settled in as Appaloosa’s new chief of police, his authority bolstered by a retinue of 12 officers, than he begins to extort protection money from Lamar Speck, who owns the Boston House saloon, and Buford Posner, of the Golden Palace. Callico, who has his eyes set on the governor’s mansion and then on the White House, wastes no time in attempting to neuter the opposition by offering jobs to Virgil and Everett, now living a frontier version of domestic life with Allie French, the lover Virgil rescued in Brimstone (2009), and the traumatized former Indian captive Laurel, who won’t speak to anyone but Virgil. Naturally, the two gunslingers turn Callico down and promptly sign on as bouncers at the Boston House. The stage is clearly set for a climactic confrontation between the corrupt police chief and his minions and the unsullied heroes. Before that can happen, though, Virgil’s half-breed friend Pony Flores comes to town with his brother Kha-to-nay in tow. Pony has helped Kha-to-nay escape from prison, and trouble is sure to follow the pair. Despite the arrival of Pinkerton agent Dell Garrison, however, that trouble doesn’t take the form most readers will expect. Instead, Kha-ton-nay will ally himself with a party of wily Apache braves, and retired Confederate General Horatio Laird, whose no-account son Nicholas Laird killed in the early going, and his hired gunman Chauncey Teagarden will assume central roles. Rest assured that Virgil will get more opportunities to live up to his assertion, “Killing don’t bother me…Long as I follow the rules.”
More shifting allegiances, moral dilemmas and characters capable of change than Virgil and Everett’s fans may be used to. It’s a shame that this youngest of the late Parker’s franchises has to end so soon.Pub Date: May 4, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-399-15648-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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