Streets of Laredo

August 2, 1993
Those who have been waiting, through several comparatively disappointing novels, for an appropriate sequel to the memorable and Pulitzer-winning Lonesome Dove can take heart. Streets of Laredo continues that epic of the waning years of the Texas Rangers with all the narrative drive and elegiac passion of its forerunner. Captain Woodrow Call, Gus Macrae's old partner from Lonesome Dove , is long in the tooth but still a legendary hunter of outlaws when he is called upon by the head of one of the railroads now crisscrossing frontier territory to bring to book a young Mexican train robber and killer, Joey Garza. Accompanied by an inappropriate railroad accountant from Brooklyn, a reluctant Texas deputy and gangling, awkward Pea Eye Parker (who is trying to give up the Ranger life and settle down to farming and family with the lovely ex-whore Lorena), Call sets off, roaming the border country in his competent, unassuming fashion. Along the way he manages to slay Mox Mox, a fellow whose specialty is burning his victims alive, but with his arthritic fingers and failing eyes Call is no match for the alert, ice-cold Garza. How Pea Eye eventually gets his man, and how Call, terribly injured, slips into the shadows is the stuff of this sprawling but minutely detailed yarn. As before, McMurtry's empathic way with strong women--Lorena as well as Garza's gallant but despairing mother Maria--is as beguiling as is his way of bringing to life both dark-dyed villains and courtly heroes. As in some great 19th-century saga, the story has more than its share of improbable coincidences--people meeting fortuitously in thousands of square miles of empty territory, hearing vital news at appropriate and inappropriate moments--but these seem only mild contrivances to shape a story packed with action, terror, humor and pathos. Laredo is a fitting conclusion to a remarkable feat of reconstruction and sheer storytelling genius. 375,000 first printing; Doubleday Book Club main selection; Literary Guild alternate.

April 4, 1994
The sequel to McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove .

July 1, 1993
In this sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove ( LJ 7/85), McMurtry once again uses the plainest of prose to tell a story that seems at once to be, for lack of any other word, a classic. Captain Call, now an old man, is hired by the railroad to hunt down a young train robber from Mexico named Joey Garza, who was raised by Apaches and who strikes targets well into Texas. The cast of characters includes a Yankee accountant sent to keep track of Call's expenses and Pea Eye, Call's longtime deputy, now settled down to a farming life with Lorena, a former prostitute who is the region's schoolteacher. As always, McMurtry somehow imbues even the least significant of his characters with individuality, and the notorious Judge Roy Bean and John Wesley Hardin make appearances. McMurtry unflinchingly explores the human capacity for evil and heroism in the face of it. Essential for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/93.-- David Dodd, Benicia P.L., Cal.

Copyright 1993 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 1993
Here's McMurtry's laconic, leisurely sequel to "Lonesome Dove" (1986). The railroads have been afflicted with the savage raids of a handsome Mexican bandit, Joey Garza, who was stolen from his mother, raised by Apaches, and simply "cannot" be tracked. He can drop a target from 1,000 yards, it's said, with his German rifle, and he's secreted away over a $1,000,000. The railroad hires the aging but fearsome Captain Call to track down Garza, and much of the novel details his slow assembly of a posse--a naive bookkeeper from the East; a brooding deputy whose young wife kills herself in his absence; Pea-Eye, Captain Call's old sidekick, who is too old for the trip and who reluctantly leaves his wife, his children, and his precious, hard-scrabble farm; and, notably, Famous Shoes, the displaced Shoshone who can track anyone anywhere, even the wraithlike Garza. Nothing but a manhunt, really, but men and women alike are drawn with love and humor, and McMurtry's showdown beats them all. There are extraordinary scenes with Judge Roy Bean and John Wesley Hardin, and a compelling, dark portrait of the West Texas hellhole Crowtown, so called for the plague of crows that descended--and never left--in the last days of buffalo hunting. Crowtown "is" hell, with its mad crows and woebegone whores and the wild hog that Maria Garza--who is as virtuous as her son is evil--matter-of-factly kills, butchers, and smokes. There's even a love story here, between Maria and Captain Call. The western is in fine form; McMurtry's never been better. ((Reviewed June 1993))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1993, American Library Association.)