Review - Robert B. Parker's Bull River

Robert B. Parker's Bull River
A Cole and Hitch Novel 
By Robert Knott
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Pub. Date: January 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0399165269
Pages: 352
Buy Links: Hardback, Kindle

Review:

I didn't take an interest in the western genre until I was in my early 20s, when I had stumbled upon a few $5 Clint Eastwood movies at Walmart, which lead me to buy every Clint Eastwood film. I also took interests in reading a few westerns by Max Brand, Matt Braun and Zane Grey. I stumbled upon Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker after watching the film version starring Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen. I quickly became a fan of Robert B. Parker's writings; reading a few Spenser novels and of course the Cole and Hitch sagas (Resolution, Brimestone and Blue-Eyed-Devil).

Blue-Eyed -Devil was published after the author's death, so I thought that would be end of of Cole and Hitch's adventures, but that wasn't the case, as author Robert Knott took over series with the release of Ironhorse in 2013. The newest entry, Bull River, was released in January and I was eagerly looking forward to reading it, but a few other books arrived before this one, so it had landed in my TBR stack until I finally got to reading it last month.

In Bull River, Marshal Virgil Cole and Deputy Everett Hitch have captured the outlaw Alejandro Vasquez and have escorted him to San Cristobal to stand trail. There is no time to rest for the duo, as soon as they arrive there is a big bank robbery and they quickly go after the robbers in the hope of recovering the money and capturing the criminals, but things go a bit rocky for them.

The first book in the series, Appaloosa, was less about plot and more of a character-study with some of the best dialogue ever written; this continued for the next three books. Robert Knott tries his best to write like Parker, but there was only Robert B. Parker, so he will never be able to clone Parker's storytelling abilities. Bull River is a little more fleshed out than Ironhorse; giving the characters and plot more depth. I seldom read reviews before writing my own, but I happen  to read a few reviews before I started writing this. There are way too many readers comparing Bull River to Robert B. Parker's work; they must understand that Robert Knott is the author here and the writing will never be like the first four entries in the series. While Ironhorse was somewhat of a letdown, I thought Robert Knott improved with his second Cole and Hitch tale. Yes, it is a little predictable towards the end, but it is nowhere near as bad as others have written it out to be. Overall, Robert B. Parker's Bull River is a fun western to read. I'm looking forward to reading other Cole and Hitch tales in the near future.

*Disclaimer - I received a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.