Gunman’s Rhapsody, by Robert B. Parker
- Summary: [2] Parker, best known for his Spenser detective novels, writes about the Earp family — both well-known and non- — and the Gunfight at OK Corral, and a time when men were men, women were women, and, not to belabor the point, men were men. Spenser (and most other Parker heroes) would fit in just fine here, as we see the Earp brothers banded together in Tombstone, dealing with their own quiet passions and the vanity and violence of the world around them. Strong, silent types, the Earps, especially Wyatt (who is sort of the main protagonist, though the PoV sometimes dizzyingly shifts) would get along well with Spenser and the rest of Parker’s contemporary fold. The most basic critique I have is how fast it read — I managed to polish it off in the time frame around a 3 hour air flight. And, delving deeper into that critique, I think it would have been worth Parker’s time to give the book a serious re-editing, tightening some of those PoV shifts, among other things. The book feels oddly episodic — and the episodes are not always what one would consider the high points of the story. Indeed, though the story extends beyond the fabled Gunfight, as it proceeds the reader begins to feel more and more removed from the action, as if we’re seeing a kaleidoscopic compression of events, with all but a few, choice episodes put into detail, the rest simply elided between chapters. This is definitely a book more for Spenser (or, more generally, Parker) fans than afficionados of the Old West, or the events portrayed.
- Entertainment: [2] It’s not clear how much of this is sheer invention and how much is based on the historic record (though there are some marvelous excerpts from contemporary newspaper stories of national and world events). Certainly the characters here come off as far different from the classic OK Corral portrayals — whether the black-and-white classics such as My Darling Clementine, the surrealistically cheesy Star Trek TOS episode “Spectre of the Gun,” or the more recent renditions such as Tombstone. Certainly if you like Parker’s other writing, this will be a mildly disjointed but still entertaining read.
- Profundity: [2] Men are strong, silent, band-of-brothers types. Or should be. Lots of quotable quotes — but Spenser said them all, first, and more effectively.
- Re-readability: [2] Parker’s books are quite rereadable, sort of like grabbing for a bag of chips from the shelf. I’d not grab this one first, but I can easily imagine myself reading it again.
(Rankings are all on a scale of 1 (worst) to 3 (best).)
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