Rating: 
Summary: Not Lonesome Dove...but An Excellent Sequel
Review: "Streets of Laredo" is the much-anticipated sequel to Larry McMurtry's finest and most memorable novel, "Lonesome Dove." Because of the quality of the first novel, which ranks among this reader's favorites, almost any follow-up would be disappointing as "Lonesome Dove" is a book that few readers will forget. "Streets of Laredo" suffers from the fact that Gus McCrae, one of the two cantankerous and aging cowboys from "Lonesome Dove", is not present in this book. The repartee and interaction between the voluble McCrae and the taciturn, curmudgeonly Call was one of the great strengths of the first novel and now, in "Streets of Laredo", Call, the less colorful of the duo is at the center of the story. He is hired to track down a Mexican bandit, Joey Garza and along with an Eastern "tenderfoot", a hapless deputy sheriff and "Pea Eye" Parker, one of the secondary characters from "Lonesome Dove", he pursues the bandit across the windswept panhandle, through the hardscrabble Pecos country and into Mexico. McMurtry populates the Streets of Laredo with real life characters drawn from western history including the prolific killer John Wesley Hardin, the cattleman and trailblazer, Charles Goodnight and the colorful Judge Roy Bean who set himself up as "The Law West of the Pecos." In "Streets of Laredo" Woodrow Call is an aging man, not destined for more adventures and so the awkward "Pea Eye" Parker, who is now a husband and a father, married to the beautiful and good hearted whore Lorena, is elevated to a major character, torn between the pull of home and hearth and duty to his comrades. Like most of McMurtry's books about the historic west, this novel is brutal, full of violent deaths. However, it also features strong and beautifully written female characters as the author understands that the plains were not settled by the feint of heart, that it took bold men and resourceful, strong women to tame a wild country. "Streets of Laredo" does not measure up to the preceding "Lonesome Dove" but it is a fine book nonetheless, with a straightforward narrative drive that provides the reader with a compelling and haunting tale of love, loss, duty, pain, and ultimately, redemption.
We beat the drum lowly and shook the spurs slowly,
And bitterly wept as we bore him along;
For we all loved our comrade, so brave and so handsome,
We all loved our comrade, although he's done wrong...
From "Streets of Laredo"
Perhaps the saddest old cowboy song, written about 1860
Rating: 
Summary: Do some research, Larry !
Review: A good story marred by historical inaccuracy. Judge Roy Bean died of a combination of old age and alcoholism and outlived John Wesley Hardin by a good many years. JWH is depicted as a vicious killer even though he was a reformed character after being released from prison around the time the action takes place. He practised law and is unlikely to have even been in the area at the time. Mr McMurtry should read a little history - or use fictional characters.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book!
Review: A very good continuation of "Lonesome Dove". A psycho train robber who is a crack shot with a rifle is spreading panic and fear in the South and Southwest. Texas Ranger Captain Woodrow Call is called upon to stop him. The hunt for the young train robber begins. There are many twists and turns in the trail.Call and his troops have many adventures on their treck. They finally wind up reunited with PeaEye in Texas. There are some exciting encounters for Captain Call during their hunt. Many interesting characters are introduced during the telling of this story. The ending is very good. This is another McMurtry classic that you will enjoy. Read it.
Rating: 
Summary: WOW!
Review: Alright, it's not as good as LONESOME DOVE. That was the first book of the series I read, and it was so brilliant and entertaining, that I almost didn't want to read more and spoil it. But I gave in to temptation, and I'm glad I did. Warning, though...if you thought there were depressing things in DOVE, watch out for this one! Lots of characters die...in fact, lots of memorable characters from LD are already dead when STREETS begins. But you have to accept that sort of thing from McMurtry. His plots, just like life, do what they want to, and no preference from the reader will change that. A feeling of dread hangs over this book, particularly whether Pea Eye and Lorena will ever reunite happily. Jeez, I couldn't read this thing fast enought to see what happened next, and in my opinion, that's about the best praise you can give a book. I've never liked westerns, but thank God I plunged into these. STREETS is not has funny as LD was in parts, but otherwise, it is a very, very worthy sequel.
Rating:
Summary: A great ending to the four novel series with Capital Call
Review: An enjoyable ending to the saga of Captain Call. This book moved a little slower than those of the earlier years of McCrea and Call but I still could not put it down.
Rating:
Summary: A WORTHY SEQUEL
Review: AT THE START OF READING STREETS OF LAREDO I WAS HEARTBROKEN BECAUSE SO MANY OF THE CHARACTERS I LOVED FROM LONESOME DOVE WERE GONE AND YOU JUST KNOW IT WON'T BE THE SAME, BUT THIS SERIES IS AS LIFE..YOU CAN'T ALWAYS HAVE IT GO AS YOU'D LIKE. ONCE YOU ACCEPTTHIS AND YOU KEEP READING, IT'S THE SAME AS WITH LONESOME DOVE...YOU CAN'T PUT IT DOWN AND YOU NEVER WANT IT TO END...A TRULY GREAT STORY.
Rating:
Summary: Good Final Book to the Lonesome Dove Series
Review: Call is old. Only a few characters remain from the past. Life has taken it toll, but Call continues to persevere, alone, without Gus. Life is not what we want it to be. But we continue on, doing the best we can. Excellent book. Teaches the aging process, the endurance and plotting forward movement to the end. Many exciting moments, touching, heart-warming, brutal and grim. Life before our eyes as it is. At the end, it's time to begin reading the series of books all over again!
Evelyn Horan - teacher/counselor/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Book One - Four
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Certainly not one of McMurtrys better works. A far cry from Lonesome Dove
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Joyless
Review: First let me say I loved Lonesome Dove. I believe it's one of the best novels ever written. This, on the other hand, is far from it. All the things that made Lonesome Dove so great just aren't present here. The lyricism, the poetry, the sense of wonder are gone. Those things and all the interesting characters. This isn't giving anything away but almost all the interesting surviving character from Lonesome Dove dies before Streets of Laredo even begins. The few left are the ones that don't talk much. They have nothing interesting to say and very little interesting to do other than suffer. I'm not particularly interested in watching people suffer. Reading about it either. The first part of this book just recounts how everyone died in the intervening time. And that's the fun part. It gets worse from there, much worse. I've never been more happy to end a book.
Rating:
Summary: Good story, but not great writing---there is a difference
Review: First, am I mistaken or is Famous Shoes really heading north to find the place ducks and geese breed in the winter? The book seems to clearly state that fall had come, along with the snows, and the birds were flying north above him when he was forced to turn back because of the cold. He was apparently still making his way back home (south) in the spring when he saw the ducks and birds flying south. Have I misunderstood something?I read the 4 volumes of Lonesome Dove because a writer I like very much, Thomas McGuane, was said to be reminiscent of McMurtry on the back of one of McGuane's books----an effort to sell more books apparently. In addition to being angered by a rather insulting "compliment" to Mr. McGuane (no matter whom he was being compared to), I suspected that the two writers couldn't be more different just from what I had heard about Mr. McMurtry and I had to see for myself. I have to admit that I became hooked on the Lonesome Dove tetralogy (sp)---it was a good story from an entertainment point of view, perhaps something like "Gone with the Wind" is. It was like watching an entertaining TV show. McMurtry (these are the only books of his I have read), is far from being a master in the use of language, however. Events in the story are not necessarily predictable, but the language certainly is. The behavior of the characters is inexplicable and they are one-, or at most two-, dimensional. They just are the way they are. I think that telling a good tale is something worth doing and these volumes make up a pretty good tale. But telling a good tale is not the same as being a great writer and there are people who can do both.
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