Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine

So I read Robert B. Parker's new western novel last night. Didn't take long, which is no great surprise. One of the things I like about Parker's books is that they're short. That's not the only thing, of course. Just one of the things.

Some people (western writers, for example, who have a hard time getting published because "nobody reads westerns") might be irritated to discover that Parker can write what is essentially a traditional western novel with a couple of "fucks" thrown in and find it solidly on the bestseller list at the New York Times (#15 last time I looked). I mean, this book contains just about every western cliche that you can think of, and while you're reading it, you can pick out some of the movies Parker must have watched in the course of his research (Unforgiven, Rio Bravo, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, etc.).

But Parker, being Parker, puts his own spin on the cliches, and that's part of the fun. He also throws in his usual philosophy about what it takes to be a man, why a man has to follow the rules, why a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, and so on. Real Men know one another and understand one another. A couple of them can shake hands before a gunfight in which one's sure to be killed to let each other know there's no hard feelings. Virgil Cole, the marshal in the story, is Spenser carried to an extreme. And without Spenser's understanding of women. (Women, of course, understand women, so one character is a whore who can explain them to those of us who can't.)

The book's narrator is Everett Hitch, and some of the dialogue between him and Cole could have been lifted right out of the Spenser novels. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I enjoyed reading the book, but I like just about anything Parker writes. It doesn't stay with me long, but it's fun while it lasts.