Appaloosa

Just finished reading Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker (Putnam's, 2005). I usually read Parker's books when they come out, especially the Spenser series.  For me, they are a one sitting read:  huge margins and spaces and large font type.  He's a master of the short chapter and the even shorter sentence.  In Parker's world the men are always sparse in language, but fast on action: they are manly men.  Two partners are taken on by the citizens of Appaloosa  to act as hired guns/Marshalls and clean up a bad crew on the outskirts of the town.  One reviewer described the dialogue as "...laconic Gary Cooper on quaaludes," and this would be apt.  It's as if Parker took Spenser and Hawk out of Boston, sent them back in time, and instead of mulling over things in Spenser's office with coffee and donuts, they are now sitting in a saloon with whiskey added to the coffee and fried biscuits.  It's funny to read these terse, emotionally sealed messages between the partners, and then think about the dialogue used on the HBO Western Deadwood, where a town character named Al Swearingen gives off soliloquies to a decapitated Indian head in a box that ring as Shakespearean as Richard III in their floweriness and complexity.  I would still recommend Appaloosa for an idle, quick read between your more serious summer reading, but if you really want to read good Westerns, go back to early Elmore Leonard:  The Bounty Hunters, The Law At Randado, Escape From Five Shadows, Last Stand At Saber River, Hombre, and Valdez Is Coming.