Blue-Eyed Devil

By: Robert B. Parker

Narrated by: Titus Welliver

Law enforcement in Appaloosa had once been Virgil Cole and me. Now there was a chief of police and twelve policemen. Our third day back in town, the chief invited us to the office for a talk.

The new chief is Amos Callico, a tall, fat man in a derby hat, wearing a star on his vest and a big pearl-handled Colt inside his coat. An ambitious man with his eye on the governorship—and perhaps the presidency—he wants Cole and Hitch on his side. But they can’t be bought, which upsets him mightily.

When Callico begins shaking down local merchants for protection money, those who don’t want to play along seek the help of Cole and Hitch. When Cole is forced to fire on the trigger-happy son of politically connected landowner General Horatio Laird, Callico sees his dream begin to crumble. The guns for hire are thorns in the side of the power-hungry chief, and he’ll use any excuse to take them out. There will be a showdown—but who’ll be left standing?

Next great series

Love it good story. Great characters. It would make a good t.v. Series like deadwood.

Classic Parker!

Lean, succinct story of two cowboys, Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole, with unquestionable ethics and unshakable loyalties to themselves and each other. Beautifully done, well read.

Great story!

A story about right and wrong and how they change depending on circumstances. Interesting read.

The end of the series

This is not up to the books that came before it. It's well written, and not bad, but Parker seemed to be running out of things to say. Earlier books were about Cole figuring out who he was, and what his relationship with Allie was, and here that seems to be largely settled. What remains is a standard problem for Cole and Hitch: large numbers of men dominating a town, and, in this case, another group attacking a town, and Cole and Hitch need to deal with them, with the help of a few other professsionals. You look for interesting details to spice it up, and there are a few, but it has a fourth-book-in-the-contract feel. The style isn't as taut as in Appaloosa.

I read two or three of the non-Parker followups when they came out, and my impression was that they had no real reason to exist. One good thing about libraries is that you can determine things like that painlessly.
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Titus Welliver is excellent, as always.

Way too short for a credit

Too short for $10 credit but it’s part of the series. It was good for 4hrs