"Comanche Moon" by Larry McMurtry, a brilliant and haunting novel richly
capable of standing on its own, completes the author's epic four-volume
cycle of novels of the American West that began in 1985 with the
Pulitzer Prize -- winning masterpiece, "Lonesome Dove."
We join Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow F. Call in their middle
years, 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. Assisting the Rangers in their wild chase is the
renowned Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes.
"Comanche Moon" joins the twenty-year time line between "Dead Man's
Walk" and "Lonesome Dove," as we follow beloved heroes Gus and 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, courageously determined to defend their territory
and their way of life.