Streets of Laredo

From Publishers Weekly 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. From Library Journal 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. From Kirkus Reviews A handsome young psychopath begins a spree of train robbery and murder in the West Texas border country, and the victimized railroad hires the legendary Ranger Captain Woodrow Call, aging hero of McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, to stop him. Gabby, funny Gus McCrae is in his grave, but years later other veterans of McMurty's epic cattle drive live on. Woodrow Call is nearly an old man, still maintaining his reputation as the greatest manhunter in the West. Living nearby, Pea-Eye, Call's old corporal, is a farmer married to Lorena, the gracefully fading beauty who once worked as a prostitute. Pea-Eye and Lorena, the only teacher at the little local school, have five children. Captain Call's final manhunt begins with orders from Colonel Terry, president of the railroad whose trains have been knocked off and passengers murdered by coldblooded Joey Garza. Call summons Pea-Eye to ride with him as he has always done, but Pea-Eye, who almost desperately loves his farm and family and who is beginning to feel his age, refuses the Captain for the first time in his life, and Call has to begin his hunt with no help other than that of Mr. Brookshire--the Brooklyn accountant Col. Terry sent to mind his money. The manhunt is almost immediately complicated by the return of Mox Mox, a murderous pervert who likes to torture and burn his victims. Mox Mox is working the same territory as Joey Garza, a beat also patrolled by the gunslinger John Wesley Harding. It's really more than Call can handle, no matter how quickly the terrified Mr. Brookshire loses his city-bred helplessness. As Call slowly tracks Garza, Maria (Garza's mother) sets out to save her son; a guilt-ridden Pea-Eye finally rides off to join his old boss; and Lorena follows her husband. Everybody who survives winds up in Joey's hometown for the showdown. Bleak, stately, terrifying, and moving: It's not just the wonderful story and completely original, perfectly American characters; McMurtry writes as well about aging as has ever been done. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Read more