Blue-Eyed Devil

A by-the-numbers Western story that is heightened by gold-dust residue left over from previous books in this series. The Cole & Hitch stories have, by this fourth and final book, descended into routine Western troping and minimalist storytelling now so pared back that you still feel hungry after finishing it.

What I admired so much about the first two Cole & Hitch books (and, to a lesser extent, the third one) was that Parker said a lot in between the lines. The plots were streamlined and the dialogue punchy, but somewhat nebulous themes (law and order, friendship, forgiveness, redemption) manifested themselves in all that white space which was left. I love Parker's style and characters and content but, as much as I like Blue-Eyed Devil, show more I'm not going to claim it's better than it is.

It lacks the punch of previous instalments: yet again, it's Cole and Hitch going up, steely-eyed, against a tinpot bully (landowner, corrupt sheriff, and so on), enlisting help from past acquaintances (and they all show up here, Pony, Rose, Cato…) and wiping everything clean in a big final gunfight. It's very readable, whether Cole and Hitch are shooting black-hats or shooting the shit with each other. But it's nothing that hasn't been done in previous books, and done better.

The introspection and philosophising of the earlier books is now almost completely gone. This would be more palatable if something different was being done with the book, if Parker was trying to take it in a different direction. But he's not trying anything new, just re-using the same formula. Again, that would be fine if not for the fact that there are evidently diminishing returns. It seems Parker started off with a streamlined concept in the first book, Appaloosa, and has been paring it back ever since, receding to such an extent that by the fourth book he's had to start taking out themes and depth in order to keep whittling it down. There's now little meat left on the bone.

It's a great little read, but nothing more than that. I feel rather guilty at criticizing it, but that's largely because the earlier books in the series managed to be great little reads and yet something more. It's a shame Parker died before he could write more in this fine series, for then I would no doubt be talking about a minor blip in a run of great ongoing Cole & Hitch stories, rather than an underwhelming coda to the series. So I remember how great the previous books could be, and try to accept Blue-Eyed Devil as just a quick, clean draw. "And we do kind of like putting together a little firefight like this," as Hitch says on page 258. We do kind of like it. That's enough, I s'pose. show less

This is classic Parker: men living by clear, unwritten codes of violent nobility, straightforward confrontations, ambiguous female characters in the background, tight dialogue. Short, gripping, funny, and wonderful. As an aside, this is the first Parker audiobook I've tried and I fear it doesn't translate well. His choppy dialogue feels jarring read aloud.

Generally speaking, I enjoy the Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch novels. The writing style is easy going. The books are short and are a breeze to read. More often than not, the plots are compelling as well. Those elements are all present in Blue-Eyed Devil. Cole and Hitch are back in Appaloosa but this time they find themselves on the opposite side of the law since the new chief of police is an amoral, power hungry man named Amos Calico. Although, they don’t specifically try to oppose him, it becomes clear as the novel progresses that they will ultimately wind up on opposite sides of the gun barrel.

Although I generally liked this novel, there were some shortcomings. Allie continues to be a very unlikeable character. The bigger issue is show more that Cole and Hitch are almost like superheroes. They don’t have any actual super powers but they are so highly skilled with guns, that they achieve their goals with any real difficulty. In this case, the deck was stacked against them numbers wise, and they came up with a good plan, but they still prevailed without breaking much of a sweat. That’s the real downfall of these novels. I know how it’s going to end, and it’s never too difficult for them when it gets down to a gunfight, and it always ultimately does. If you like the series, you’ll like this novel, but there is a little something that’s lacking.

Carl Alves – author of The Invocation show less

Finished the book yesterday and enjoyed it. The directness of the dialogue among the characters is critical to the book, even though the conversations are short and succinct. I found myself speaking it out loud. The intimacy between Cole and Hitch shows the trust, longevity and exclusiveness of their relationship. Pony has a foot in that door, but no one else does, not even Allie. I read another Western yesterday and even though it was longer with more action and more lengthy dialogue, it didn't have the maturity of Parker's work. Oddly the plot was similar, but the work lacked the tenderness and pragmatism that is "shown" rather than "told" in Parker's almost poetic prose style. Each word carries its own weight. I'll miss reading new show more books in this series. show less

And after a few years of traveling (mainly chasing Allie), Cole and Hitch are back in Appaloosa when we first met them. While they were away, the town ha grown and now it has a police department (with a lot of employees) and the police chief Amos Callico seems to be keeping the peace well enough. At least on the surface that is.

Before long the truth emerges - Callico and his police department are indeed very good - as long as you pay them to protect you. The business owners who do not want to be pay are on their own - so they decide to hire Cole and Hitch instead - which the police chief really dislikes.

Then Pony Flores, the half-Mexican, half-Indian who helped to save Laurel and her mother back in Brimstone shows up with his show more half-brother who is in a bit of a trouble - a "killing a few people and robbing a train" kind of trouble. Staying in town is not possible but Cato and Rose are still in Resolution so Pony and his brother hide there for awhile. Until someone talks too much (and if you had been reading the series, you know that the someone is Allie).

Appaloosa burns - Callico is so sure that he knows better that he decides not to listen to Cole and lets Indians attack the town. But that fact does not stop the police chief for taking credit for the saved lives and things get complicated. Add a young man who dies because he is too drunk to realize that pulling a gun on Virgil Cole is a bad idea and a grieving father who hires a gunman to revenge the death and there are way too many people with guns and different agendas. Except that agendas shift.

The novel feels like a series wrap up - we see again pretty much everyone from the previous books, the story of Laurel finds a sort of a resolution and at the end Cole and Hitch are exactly where they started at the beginning of the first book (except for Allie - she is here to stay despite all of her shortcomings; as usual for Parker, once one of his leads falls in love, they get obsessed).

And somewhere in the middle of all the action and returning heroes, there is an underlying conversation about what law is in the territories and if justice and law are the same. Parker's books are often called simplistic and they can be viewed that way but there is usually some depth in them, even in these late books.

It is written in the usual Parker style - a lot of dialog, short sentences and quick action. And it made me wonder again what this series could have become if he had started it when he was at his best. But still - the 4 novels in this series are worth a read - not sure how well it will work for western fans but if you are coming from the other Parker's series, you may be pleasantly surprised.

The series is continued by Robert Knott. I am rarely enthusiastic for this kind of continuations but some of the other writers who continued the other Parker series had been pretty good at that so I plan to check at least the first books. show less

Robert B. Parker has created some great characters. His Spenser novels have many of them (with—IMHO—the exception of Susan Silverman). In Blue-Eyed Devil, he reprises two of his most enjoyable, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. Virgil and Everett are pistoleros of the first order—well, maybe Everett can be otherwise classified because his weapon of choice is an eight-gauge shotgun.

In a previous novel, Virgil and Everett were the sheriffs of Appaloosa (of some unnamed state that sounds like Arizona), but they got bored and left. Now they return to Appaloosa to find that a new man, Amos Callico, has become the chief law enforcement officer, and he has hired a phalanx of deputies. Callico has visions of getting elected to a high show more office, perhaps even President of the United States. But he is starting out slow, financing his operation primarily through extorting the local businessmen. Virgil and Everett don’t like Amos one bit, and you can bet that won’t be good for Amos in the end.

Virgil and Everett bring justice to Appaloosa (as expected), but they have to fight off a band of raiding Apache warriors as well as Amos’s private army. They manage to do so with rarely uttering a sentence of more than 5 words.

Parker’s writing, as in his Boston detective novels, is crisp and sassy. (Some might say, choppy and silly. But if you love old western comedy movies, you'll love these books too.)

It’s hard to take more than two days to read a Parker novel. They are short, and they are page turners. This one is no exception.

(JAB) show less

Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker is the 4th and last in his western series that features Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. Having come full circle, Cole and Hitch find themselves back in the town of Appaloosa, not as lawmen this time but as saloon bouncers. Their little family includes the love of Virgil’s life, Allie and also Laurel, a young girl they rescued from Apaches. The local sheriff, Amos Callico, is an ambitious man and would rather see the back end of this duo as they are cutting into his payback money and his glory.

This book reads less like a novel and more like an old time Western Serial. Comprised of over sixty two or three page chapters it is a very quick read, but by this time the reader knows these characters and how show more to fill in all the missing details. The author sets up the story, adds a little tension and ignites the action. Between attacking Apaches and dealing with a corrupt law force, this is an exciting story and an excellent conclusion to this extremely readable series. show less