McMurtry revisits Gus and Call, but what can he do after killing them both off in earlier books? He goes back to the earliest days when they first join the rangers and start adventuring. Buffalo Hump is the great antagonist, but the rangers are no great organization. They are a bunch of opportunists who seek glory and money, but also ignorant and naive in dealing with the realities of the land and the people. The group essentially falls apart and is essentially destroyed on the march across the llano and their encounters with Buffalo Hump. The group that survives is captured by the Mexicans and forced to march across the Jornado Muerte, and even then half of them are executed.
Gus and Call have one great adventure in escorting an English countess across the west Texas desert with a highly unlikely encounter with Buffalo Hump again. The book is nowhere near McMurtry's best and far too many improbabilities and coincidences. Still, a lot of gratuitous violence and bumbling characters with a lot of comic relief provided by Gus. The narrator turned me off at some points. He just didn't have the range of voices to pull it off, certainly not as Lee Horsley did with Lonesome Dove. I enjoyed Dead Man's Walk much more in print years ago when it first came out.
Author: McMurtry, Larry
Date Published: 1996
Length: 14hr 31min
Narrator: Patton, Will
No comments:
Post a Comment