Blue-Eyed Devil (Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch Series #4)

by Robert B. Parker

Overview

Once, Appaloosa law was Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. Now it's Amos Callico, a vindictive, power-hungry tin star with bigger aims-and he could use Cole and Hitch on his side. This time the paid guns aren't for hire, which makes Callico a very vengeful man. But threatening Cole and Hitch ignites something just as dangerous.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101429426
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/04/2010
Series:	Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch Series , #4
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	27,775
File size:	587 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Robert B. Parker was the author of more than fifty books. He died in January 2010.

Date of Birth:

September 17, 1932

Date of Death:

January 18, 2010

Place of Birth:

Springfield, Massachusetts

Place of Death:

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education:

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

Website:

http://robertbparker.net/

Editorial Reviews

Great authors, like cowboys, are always galloping beyond boundaries, finding their own paths on untamed frontiers. Robert B. Parker could have stayed with his Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sunny Randall thrillers and none of us would have complained. Instead, in 2005, he began heading in new directions, starting a new westerns series that stars Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. In this fourth entry in the series, Cole and Hitch are up against the force of a corrupt chief of police who has a strong hankering to become an even more corrupt politician. Saddle up and ride towards dawn; genre-switching is a mind-expanding business.

This excellent posthumous western from bestseller Parker (1932-2010) continues the saga of gun-slinging saddle pals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch (after Brimstone) as they trade wisecracks and hot lead with back-shooting owlhoots and murderous Apaches in the town of Appaloosa. Cole and Hitch used to be the law in town, but now Appaloosa has a corrupt, ambitious, and deadly police chief named Amos Callico backed up by 12 rifle-toting cops of dubious background, and though Callico sees Cole and Hitch as impediments to his plans for extortion and high political office, his threats don't worry the boys much. Meanwhile, Cole kills the son of a prominent rancher in a fair fight, renegade Apaches plan an attack on the town, and a mysterious dandy arrives in town with a sinister agenda. Fortunately, Cole and Hitch are smart and resourceful, and there's trickery, gunplay, and throat-cutting until only a few folks are left standing. Lean, fast, and full of snappy dialogue, it's everything a series fan would expect. (May)

Publishers Weekly

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.

Kirkus Reviews