Brimstone E-Book

Robert B Parker

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Gunslinging saddle pals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch rescue Allie French, Virgil's former sweetie who ran off to become a prostitute, and head to Brimstone, south Texas. The two gunmen sign on as deputy sheriffs, but Brimstone fails to provide a quiet respite. A mysterious Indian is killing locals, and a brutal saloon owner and corrupt preacher are headed for a showdown... Virgil and Everett settle on a tricky solution that involves a talented tracker, a bribe, a double-cross, a noxious cloud of gun smoke and a pile of perforated bodies. The result is classic Parker - exciting, suspenseful and entertaining.

Leseprobe

Praise for

BRIMSTONE

“The story is riveting, but as usual with a Robert B. Parker Western, the great attraction is the writing itself, especially the brilliantly rendered dialogue.”

—The Associated Press

“[Brimstone] provides some excellent evidence for anyone who wants to argue that Spenser’s creator has been writing nothing but Westerns for thirty-five years.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“There’s murder and showdowns and lots of great action. As always, Parker’s dialogue is the star of his books, especially the laconic conversations between Cole and Hitch.”

—Lincoln Journal Star

RESOLUTION

“The most memorable Western heroes since Larry McMurtry’s . . . Lonesome Dove. . . . Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole, the confident, soft-spoken gun hands introduced in Appaloosa are back—and in a big way. Parker’s prose is at its very best.”

—The Associated Press

“[Parker’s] back with both barrels blazing.”

—The Greenville (MI) Daily News

“This is a tale of the untamed West, where the gun—the fastest gun—is the only law. This novel makes it clear [Parker’s] storytelling skills and great dialogue go well beyond the escapades of the private eye.”

—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Parker applies his customary vigor to this sequel to Appaloosa, in a sparse, bullet-riddled rumination on law and order, friendship and honor. . . . Parker’s dialogue is snappy and his not-a-word-wasted scenes suit this Spartan Western.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Parker’s writing is a pure pleasure to read—terse and strong, it carries a good story and lays its messages between the lines . . . fast and fun to read. Highly recommended.”

—Library Journal

“Parker focuses on what he does best—ritualistically clipped dialogue and manly posturing—and serves up a reminder of just how much hard-boiled fiction owes the Western.”

—Kirkus Reviews

APPALOOSA

“The Deadwood-era American West . . . Powerfully good.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“Pure, old-fashioned storytelling . . . the work of a master craftsman. Parker captures the West as neatly as he does the streets of Boston.”

—The Washington Post

“A classic Western . . . with a twist.”

—Boston Herald

“Tough-guy appeal . . . plenty of action.”

—The Wall Street Journal

“Dryly amusing . . . a conclusion that had to make Parker smile as much as his readers will.”

—Los Angeles Times

Classic . . . magnificent . . . One of Parker’s finest.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“For . . . readers with a hankering for the Wild West, including a high-noon shoot-out and all the accoutrements.”

—USA Today

“Beneath the trappings of this gunfighter novel, Parker really has something to say about the nature of men and women in the Old West. Highly recommended.”

—Library Journal

“As always, [Parker] is a master . . . his plot gallops to a perfect, almost mythical ending. Like a great gunfighter, Parker makes it look easy.”

—St. Petersburg Times

“If Spenser and Hawk had been around when the West was wild, they’d have talked like Cole and Hitch. Wonderful stuff: notch 51 for Parker.”

—Kirkus Reviews

GUNMAN’S RHAPSODY

“Robert B. Parker, the creator of the Spenser detective series, has taken the refreshing view that [Wyatt] Earp was a man long before he was a symbol and has written Gunman’s Rhapsody, a swift-moving, satisfying novel . . . that shows surprising fidelity to most of the known facts without letting them get in the way of a good story. Parker’s strengths here, as in his crime novels, are plot and dialogue. In Gunman’s Rhapsody he has a terrific ready-made story in the events that led to the gunfight at O.K. Corral and its bloody aftermath of revenge, and he creates a spare Western vernacular that gets to the truth in a hurry.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“Gunman’s Rhapsody brings author Robert B. Parker into a new genre, the Western, and that helps put a new spin on his old tricks. . . . Gunman’s Rhapsody is at its core a love story. Wyatt is in love with his guns, with his brothers and extended family, with his macho code of honor, and with Josie. . . . [Parker] open[s] perspectives on a heroic myth that is bound to time and place but also lies outside them.”

—The Boston Globe

“A fresh take on the Western marshal [Wyatt Earp] . . . Rhapsody’s psychological portrait is a sure shot. . . . Saddle up for Western noir.”

—People

“The book rings true. . . . Gunman’s Rhapsody is both fast and steady.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“A remarkably artful Western, as tough and as true as the slap of gunmetal against leather. . . . The rhapsody plays out in a rare Parker stand-alone novel, his best yet and his first Western. Told in prose as cool and spare as Parker has ever laid down . . . The narrative takes on the inexorability of classic tragedy.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Parker, best known for his Spenser detective novels (really modern Westerns set in Boston), settles seamlessly into this classic Western story. . . . Wyatt Earp is Spenser with spurs. . . . The theme of hard, violent men in conflict over love and their own codes of honor is standard Parker fare, but no one does it better.”

—Booklist

NOVELS BY ROBERT B. PARKER

THE SPENSER NOVELS

Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland

(by Ace Atkins)

Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby

(by Ace Atkins)

Sixkill

Painted Ladies

The Professional

Rough Weather

Now & Then

Hundred-Dollar Baby

School Days

Cold Service

Bad Business

Back Story

Widow’s Walk

Potshot

Hugger Mugger

Hush Money

Sudden Mischief

Small Vices

Chance

Thin Air

Walking Shadow

Paper Doll

Double Deuce

Pastime

Stardust

Playmates

Crimson Joy

Pale Kings and Princes

Taming a Sea-Horse

A Catskill Eagle

Valediction

The Widening Gyre

Ceremony

A Savage Place

Early Autumn

Looking for Rachel Wallace

The Judas Goat

Promised Land

Mortal Stakes

God Save the Child

The Godwulf Manuscript

THE JESSE STONE NOVELS

Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice

(by Michael Brandman)

Robert B. Parker’s Killing the Blues

(by Michael Brandman)

Split Image

Night and Day

Stranger in Paradise

High Profile

Sea Change

Stone Cold

Death in Paradise

Trouble in Paradise

Night Passage

THE SUNNY RANDALL NOVELS

Spare Change

Blue Screen

Melancholy Baby

Shrink Rap

Perish Twice

Family Honor

THE VIRGIL COLE / EVERETT HITCH NOVELS

Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse

(by Robert Knott)

Blue-Eyed Devil

Brimstone

Resolution

Appaloosa

ALSO BY ROBERT B. PARKER

A Triple Shot of Spenser

Double Play

Gunman’s Rhapsody

All Our Yesterdays

A Year at the Races

(with Joan H. Parker)

Perchance to Dream

Poodle Springs

(with Raymond Chandler)

Love and Glory

Wilderness

Three Weeks in Spring

(with Joan H. Parker)

Training with Weights

(with John R. Marsh)

First published in hardback in the United States in 2009 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Published in ebook in Great Britain in 2014 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Robert B. Parker, 2009Excerpt from Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker copyright © Robert B. ParkerInterior text design by Amanda Dewey

The moral right of Robert B. Parker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 098 5

Printed in Great Britain.

CorvusAn imprint of Atlantic Books LtdOrmond House26-27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

For Joan:

Well worth the pressure

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

About the Author

IT’S A LONG RIDE SOUTH through New Mexico and Texas, and it seems even longer when you stop in every run-down, aimless little dried-up town, looking for Allie French. By the time we got to Placido, Virgil Cole and I were almost a year out of Resolution.

It was a barren little place, west of Del Rio, near the Rio Grande, which had a railroad station, and one saloon for every man, woman, and child in town. We went into the grandest of them, a place called Los Lobos, and had a beer.

Los Lobos was decorated with wolf hides on the wall and a stuffed wolf behind the bar. Several people looked at Virgil when he came in. He wasn’t special-looking. Sort of tall, wearing a black coat and a white shirt and a Colt with a white bone handle. But there was something about the way he walked and the way the gun seemed so natural. People looked at me sometimes, too, but always after they looked at Virgil.

“Think that wolf might’ve exprised of old age,” Virgil said.

“A long time ago,” I said.

“Exprised ain’t right,” Virgil said. “You went to West Point.”

“Expired,” I said.

“Means died,” Virgil said.

“Uh-huh.”

Virgil believed in self-improvement. He read a lot of books and had a bigger vocabulary than he knew how to use. He sipped his beer.

“Mexican,” he said. “Mexicans know how to make beer.”

“How much money you got?” I said.

“Got a dollar,” Virgil said.

“More than I got,” I said.

Virgil nodded.

“Guess we got to get some,” he said.

I grinned at him.

“We got sort of a limited range of know-how,” I said.

“Least we know it,” Virgil said.

“Lotta saloons, lotta whores,” I said. “Not much else.”

“Railroad station,” Cole said.

“Why?” I said.

“No idea,” Virgil said.

A tall, thin young man in an undershirt stood up from a table near us and walked over to us. He wasn’t heeled that I could see.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said to Virgil. “Boys at my table got a bet. Some say you’re Virgil Cole. Some say you’re not.”

The young man hadn’t shaved lately, but he was too young to have much of a beard. His two front teeth were missing.

“I am,” Virgil said.

The boy looked over his shoulder at the others at his table.

“See that?” he said. “See what I tole you?”

Everyone stared at Virgil.

“Seen you in Ellsworth,” the kid said. “I was ’bout half growed up. Seen you kill two men slick as a whistle.”

“Slick,” Virgil said.

The others at his table were all turned toward us.

“How many men you figure you killed, Mr. Cole?”

“No need to count,” Virgil said.

Most of the room was looking at us now, including the bartender. The boy seemed to have run out of things to say. Virgil was silent.

“Well, uh, it’s been a real pleasure, Mr. Cole, to meet you. Can I shake your hand?”

“No,” Virgil said.

The boy looked startled.

“Virgil don’t shake hands,” I said to the boy. “He don’t see any good coming from letting somebody get hold of him.”

“Oh,” the boy said. “A’course not. I shoulda known.”

Virgil didn’t say anything. The boy backed away sort of awkwardly. When he got to his table, his friends gathered in tight and whispered together.

“No need to be explaining me,” Virgil said to me.

“Hell there ain’t,” I said.

Virgil smiled. The kid at the next table got up and went out without looking at Virgil. A fat Mexican girl in a loose flowered dress came to the table.

“Good time for joo boys?” she said.

“Sit down,” Virgil said.

“Buy drink?” she said.

Virgil shook his head.

“Nope,” he said. “You know a woman named Allison French?”

The woman shook her head.

“Probably calls herself Allie?” Virgil said.

“No.”

“Plays the piano?” Virgil said. “Sings?”

“Don’t know nobody,” the Mexican woman said. “Round the world for a dollar. Joo friend, too.”

Virgil smiled.

“No,” he said. “Thanks.”

“No drink?” she said. “No fuck?”

“Nope,” Virgil said. “Anybody knows Allison French, though, they get a dollar.”

The woman stood up and went back to the other girls in the back of the saloon. She was too fat to flounce, but she was trying.

“Think she gets many dollars?” I said to Virgil.

“Nope.”

“Easy to turn down,” I said.

Virgil shrugged.

“She probably don’t like it, either,” he said. “Just doing what she gotta.”

A group of four men came into Los Lobos and stood at the bar and looked at Virgil. Each of them had a whiskey. Pretty soon two more men drifted in, and then three, until the bar was crowded with men.

“Looks like that kid been spreading the alert,” I said to Virgil.

“’Fraid so,” Virgil said.

“All of ’em look like town people,” I said. “Don’t see no cowboys.”

“Nope,” Virgil said.

“I’m feeling a little left out,” I said. “Nobody’s looking at me.”

“That’s ’cause you’re ugly,” Virgil said.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Señorita offered me round the world for a dollar.”

“She included you second,” Virgil said.

“That’s just ’cause I ain’t famous like you,” I said.

“Also true,” Virgil said, and drank the last of his beer.

“I GOT ENOUGH CHANGE,” I said, “I can buy two more beers. Save the dollar for a room.”

“Maybe sleep in the livery stable,” Virgil said. “I’ve slept in worse than a hayloft.”

“We been sleeping in worse for most of the last year,” I said.

Virgil nodded. He was looking at the bartender coming toward our table carrying a bottle and three glasses. With him was a short, wiry man. Not thin, exactly, but lean, sort of hard-looking, with a scraggly blond beard.