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Summary: Robert B. Parker, Western-Style
Review: It was not Spenser in Earp's clothing. Parker gives a refreshing twist on character development. His work has unexpectedly sparked my interest in Westerns. I highly recommend this book to others.
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Summary: Couldn't put this one down.
Review: This is not a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, but it is a really good read. I found myself drawn into the lives of the characters, and my only complaint is that the book actually seemed too short. Thanks, Mr. Parker, for a smoking good time.
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Summary: see the movie
Review: Robert Parker started out with the 'Spenser' series and they were great, at first. But as they became more and more popular, they began to read like treatments for a movie-of-the-week on TV, lacking the satisfying depth and characterization of his early works. Books that used to be a solid 350 pages, 125,000 words, now are barely 300 pages of widely spaced lines, probably not much more than 60,000 words. They're beefed up on thick paper to make the books look thick, like the old ones, but believe me, it's mostly pulp. I won't read the Parker books anymore, because they are disappointing, one long wise-crack with no suspense at all. "Gunman's Rhapsody" reads like the screenplay of "Tombstone" - some of the incidents depicted in the novel could literally have been lifted off the movie screen. There was nothing in the book that hasn't been in the movies, no new insights into the Earps or Tombstone or the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. I hate to say of it an author that I used to revere, but I think Mr. Parker has grown lazy, cashing in his reputation and writing about half as well as he is capable of. He needs to get back to his old self and write novels as good as he used to do.
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Summary: parker is always a good read
Review: One thing you can count on Robert Parker always delivers a solid-well plotted mystery. He's the closest writer out there to the master, Raymond Chandler. Other recommended reads "Bitterroot" by James Lee Burke and "Murder Doesn't Figure" by Fred Yorg.
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Summary: Parker Shoots and Misses
Review: Okay, maybe we have already been overexposed to the Earps, Clantons, Doc Holliday and the rest. But Parker just missfired in this "historical" retelling of the most famous story of the old west. The characters fail to develope. After awhile you just wish the shooting would get done. Where Parker's characters usually are multi-dimensional, here they are cartoonish. As usual, Parker is an easy read. I did get through the book quickly. But there were no surprises.
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Summary: Different
Review: Touching lightly on the historical charactors, Parker delves deep into the scarred and fetid remains of Wyatt Earp's heart. There isn't a penetrating re-opening of Wyatt's past but, rather, a very intimate look into the man's hidden demons, his love for family and hidden penchant for, however unintentional, causing pain to those closest to him. Parker hits a heavy blow to the traditional western with his relaxed narrative and dialogue driven story. As good, 'cept different, than any Spencer novel.
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Summary: Not Parker's Best, But Worth Reading
Review: I've read a great deal about Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the events surrounding the shoot out at the O.K. Corral. I've also enjoyed some fictional accounts of the event. Here, Parker does a decent job of recreating the event, but like a lot of fictional accounts, it lacks depth. The best aspect of Parker's effort is that it looks at the events from an entirely different, and plausible angle. Josie Marcus becomes an even more central figure here, and the tale Parker spins about the love affair between Wyatt and Josie and its impact on events is certainly credible and an interesting new twist to an old tale. The problem is, that for anyone who has read Parker's Spenser novels, it reads very much like a Spenser novel. It's not new, it's not unique, and characters other than Wyatt, Josie, and Johnny Behan, his antagonist, come out shallow and undeveloped. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it been the first Parker novel I'd ever read, instead of about the 30th. Nevertheless, I give it a qualified thumbs up. It's definitely worth reading.
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Summary: Dwindling Effort
Review: As a former rabid fan of Robert Parker, especially the Spenser series, it saddens me to say that this book is just another of Parker's recent half-hearted efforts to put something in print. In Gunman's Rhapsody, he rehashes old plots and dialogues from print and movie script. The publisher, in collusion, allows it to go out with it's deceptive practice of meager word count, large font, and widely spaced lines. Robert Parker is tired folks. After so many great works, he doesn't seem to want to write anymore. Don't buy this book.
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Summary: Robert Parker's first western
Review: Robert Parker's novels have always focused on tough, self-sufficient characters, so the idea of the author writing something in the Western genre seems a natural fit. (Indeed, Parker's last Spenser novel, POTSHOT, is little more than a modern retelling of THE MAGNIFICANT SEVEN.) Surprisingly, GUNMAN'S RHAPSODY, a fictionalized account of the Earp-cowboy feud that occurred during the 1880s, fails. There are, I think, a number of problems: The first is Parker's insistence on patterning the novel's characters upon his previous prototypes. Thus, for example, in a bedroom conversation between Wyatt Earp and Josie Marcus, the characters spout lines that seem uncomfortably reminiscent of dialogue we have previously heard from Spenser and Susan Silverman. Second, Parker errs fundamentally, I think, in writing about Earp and his brothers. The popular culture has been more or less inundated with information about this subject over the last decade (specifically, the release of two films, Lawrence Kasdan's lengthy biopic, WYATT EARP, and George Cosmatos' less historically accurate, but more enjoyable TOMBSTONE). By choosing to write about people and themes with which we are so familiar, Parker highlights the fact that he has seemingly little that is fresh to say on the subject. This staleness even filters down to the novel's repetitive descriptive passages where we are treated, for example, to endless scenes of Wyatt drinking coffee (with both hands on the cup) or to descriptions of gunfights in which events are reduced to slow motion (leading, incidentally, to Parker's brief and shockingly banal description of the shootout near the O.K. Corral). While I applaud Parker for having the courage to try something a little different, this was, in my opinion, a failed experiment.
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Summary: Disappointing But Worth a Read
Review: Having read everything Parker has written, and enjoying it all a good deal, I found this book curiously disappointing. It was simply too similar to the recent film "Tombstone." That might not be Parker's fault, entirely, because both that film and this book (and, I suppose, the movie "Wyatt Earp") are based on the same historical or legendary events. Still, some of the book seems extracted from the film intact. Most of the book differed in its specifics from the Hollywood version so that I didn't feel I was simply reading the screenplay, but it was disturbingly similar a bit too often. Still, it's well written. The narrative moves along nicely and the dialogue is sparse and engaging. I certainly enjoyed the author's attempt at trying to write a western - it was an easy, fun novel to read. If he ever reads these reviews, I'd be interested to get the author's comments on the similarity to "Tombstone." Perhaps I'm way off here.
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