Comanche Moon - Hardcover

McMurtry, Larry

4.12

16,375 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786213914 ISBN 13: 9780786213917

Publisher: Thorndike Press, 1998

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Set against the bitter frontier strife between Texans and the Comanche, Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call battle Buffalo Hump, the enigmatic war chief, and Gus' long-time nemesis, Blue Duck

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Review:

In a book that serves as a both a sequel to Dead Man's Walk and a prequel to the beloved Lonesome Dove, McMurtry fills in the missing chapters in the Call and McCrae saga. It is a fantastic read, in many ways the best and gutsiest of the series. We join the Texas Rangers in their waning Indian-fighting years. The Comanches, after one last desperate raid led by the fearsome-but-aging Buffalo Hump, are almost defeated, though Buffalo Hump's son, Blue Duck, still terrorizes the relentless flow of settlers and lawmen. As Augustus and Woodrow follow one-eyed, tobacco-spitting Captain Inish Scull deep into a murderous madman's den in Mexico, their thoughts turn toward the end of their careers and the women they love in remarkably different ways back in Austin. What's amazing about McMurtry's West is that he sees beyond the romance. Neither his Indians, his cowboys, his gunslingers, nor his women act the way they did in either Zane Grey novels or John Wayne movies. Incredible beauty and lightning-quick violence are the bookends of his West, but it is the in-between moments of suffering and boredom where McMurtry shines. The suffering is poignant and heart-rending; the boredom tempered with doses of Augustus McCrae's sharp humor. Don't be surprised if you find yourself crying and laughing on the same page.

From the Publisher:

A brilliant and haunting novel richly capable of standing on its own. Comanche Moon completes Larry McMurtry's epic cycle of novels of the American West that began with the Pulitzer-Prize-winning masterpiece, Lonesome Dove.

We join Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow F. Call as they are just beginning to deal with the perplexing tensions of adult life -- Gus, and his great love, Clara Forsythe, Call and Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him -- when they enlist with a Ranger troop in pursuit of Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf, the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture.

Comanche Moon joins the twenty-year time line between Dead Man's Walking and Lonesome Dove, as we follow Gus, Call and their comrades-in-arms -- Deets, Jake Spoon, and Pea Eye Parker -- in their bitter struggle to protect an advancing Western frontier against the defiant Comanches, determined to defend their territory and way of life.

At once realistic and yet vividly imagined, Comanche Moon is a giant of an audio book and the keystone to a mighty achievement of storytelling. An epic adventure full of heroism, tragedy, cruelty, courage, honor and betrayal, Comanche Moon is the culmination of Larry McMurtry's's peerless vision of the American West.

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