Rating: 
Summary: As good, honest and true as Lonesome Dove.
Review: Is there any U.S. writer whose prose flows as easily as Larry McMurtry's? Say what you want about his themes and plots, the man is easily the most readable American author today, and there's no better example of that than Streets Of Laredo.Only McMurtry can guide the reader through so much grit, blood and downright nastiness without pausing. Streets of Laredo is much more visceral than its worthy predecessor, but it never feels forced or gratuitous -- that's the life of Woodrow F. Call and it all makes perfect sense. Many Lonesome Dove fans no doubt were irritated with some of the character development ("Lorena married WHO?!") in Laredo, but it certainly fits the templates that McMurtry fashioned in Lonesome Dove. The author retains his gift for dialogue that rings true and memorable, yet believable salt-of-the-earth characters, such as our accountant from the East. And this time, McMurtry has taken the time to actually create a human being for his villain, as opposed to the cartoon figure of Blue Duck. Young Joey Garza is more real, and much more frightening. I've had fans of Lonesome Dove criticize Laredo as being too depressing. But "Happy" has never been the point of McMurtry's work -- he tells it like it is. And he tells it very, very well.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment after the first book
Review: It has been a couple of years since I read this book but the "BookMatcher" recommended it to me and I had to comment on how disappointed I was when I originally read it. I don't normally read Westerns but I read Lonesome Dove before the mini-series was on television and loved it so much I chose not to watch the movie (it could never compare to the novel.) Sequels are rarely as good as the original book and this was no exception. The author seemed to forget his character. In Streets the characters where constantly doing things that you would never see them doing in the first.
Rating: 
Summary: A bleak disappointment
Review: Like many other readers, I absolutely loved Lonesome Dove, which was the first novel I read after two years of only non-fiction. Lonesome Dove reminded me of what I was missing and I looked forward to Streets of Laredo. I suffered a big disappointment. I am not so naive as to expect a sequel to be EXACTLY the same as the original (or maybe I was), but while Lonesome Dove was joyously written, Streets of Laredo seems angrily written. McMurtry is a good writer and Lonesome Dove is surely his masterpiece. There is a reason that book is a beloved modern classic and Streets of Laredo is not. The first book was anchored on the charisma of a truly memorable character, Gus McCrae, and his relationship with the reserved Captain Call. Their quest is the story, but the characters, and their friendship, drive the book. There is none of that richness here, and I think McMurtry feels a little lost and angry without it. The book is filled with nearly pointless violence that seems designed to simply show that there is cruelty out there. Over and over, we are subjected to ugly scenes like the old Indian woman's trampling death, the attempted burning of the children, Joey's mutilation and murder of one of his mother's husbands. The list goes on and on. Lonesome Dove had its share of violence, too, but it served to bring home the danger and ruthlessness of the West, casting into relief the bravery and heroism of the characters in the novel. Here the west seems merely ugly and mean, an evil and frightening place. That is but one half of the vision McMurtry projected in Lonesome Dove, and it makes this book about half as good, which is to say just average. I think McMurtry should have used his prodigious talents on new characters with new conflicts, instead of trying to force something out of the remnants of a group whose stories have already been marvelously told.
Rating:
Summary: Great writer from Texas saves the day!
Review: LONESOME DOVE grabbed me right from the start. The reader is part of the action in a way that is rarely felt while reading a book. The first chapters are wonderful character developers and intertain us along the way. Gus Mcrae and Woodrow F Call are of course the heart and soul of the story, but Newt,Deets,Pea-Eye and Jake Spoon help to make up one of the most colorful casts that has ever been on paper. The great thing that Mr. McMurty was able to do, was to give us so many characters and not one time bore us while we get to know them. The book has a nice mellow start with Gus and the pigs, and this reader was lulled into just enjoying an old Texas Rangers perspective on life. That the book would take off and drag us on such an epic journey was mind boggeling. The description of the geography in the beginning was not compromised in any of the following chapters,and enriched the wonderful cast of characters and story lines. The vast plots and sub-plots were all tied neatly together in the end, and the ones that needed to be cut loose were done so with class. With great writing that you'll find in the books of Jackson McCrae (CHILDREN'S CORNER and BARK OF THE DOGWOOD) and expert pacing that can be compared to his STREETS OF LAREDO, this is one of the finest books I have ever read, and if anyone deserver a Pulitzer for their work it was Larry McMurtry. And he got it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bleak, bleak, bleak, but entertaining and admirable
Review: Lonesome Dove was a wide-angle celebration of human struggle and human life--and about how people choose to live. Streets of Laredo is much more focused. It is about getting old and dying, or dying before you get the chance to get old. It's outrageously bleak in parts, but McMurtry's straightforward, slightly folksy style makes it almost humorous (there's a scene in which a young woman commits suicide by eating rat poison that had me chuckling). This relentless darkness will undoubtedly anger a lot of readers who love the first book. I liked it, because it is still a good story with good characters, and because I can't help but be impressed by a writer who would create a sequel that he knows will alienate many of his readers.
Rating:
Summary: Alternate Review?
Review: Maybe it's just me but, it seems Mr. McMurtry might have been a little bit ticked by the movie "Return to Lonesome Dove" and "Lonesome Dove: The Series/The Outlaw Years". The sequel kills off almost everyone from "Lonesome Dove," so there can be no TRUE Lonesome Dove Part II. Its a good book and a great story but keep in mind that unfortunately many of your favorite characters from L.D. no longer around.
Rating:
Summary: Call's still got it in the worthy sequel to Lonesome Dove.
Review: McMurtry shows us that not all sequels leave you unsatisfied. "Streets of Laredo" is an excellent book that shows a hero in his old age. It is both bittersweet and thrilling at the same time. We see Woodrow Call in his post-Gus McCrae days, taking on a bandit many years his junior. We see Pea Eye Parker, an unexpected choice for the last great Hat Creek member to follow Call, fighting his impulse to go on one last job with the captain. We see fear and hatred and loneliness and loss, and each emotion is conveyed in McMurtry's masterful way. McMurtry adds a special note of realism by using actual historical figures--John Wesley Hardin, often called the West's most prolific killer, Charlie Goodnight, one of the great cowboys, and Judge Roy Bean, the hanging judge, the Law West of the Pecos. He weaves these people with his fictional characters like Pea, the Captain, and Ned Brookshire to make a very effective and entrancing novel. "Streets of Laredo" is at times violent, amusing, depressing, and at all times interesting. A fine novel, and worthy of its predecessor, "Lonesome Dove." You can't go wrong with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Call's still got it in the worthy sequel to Lonesome Dove.
Review: McMurtry shows us that not all sequels leave you unsatisfied. "Streets of Laredo" is an excellent book that shows a hero in his old age. It is both bittersweet and thrilling at the same time. We see Woodrow Call in his post-Gus McCrae days, taking on a bandit many years his junior. We see Pea Eye Parker, an unexpected choice for the last great Hat Creek member to follow Call, fighting his impulse to go on one last job with the captain. We see fear and hatred and loneliness and loss, and each emotion is conveyed in McMurtry's masterful way. McMurtry adds a special note of realism by using actual historical figures--John Wesley Hardin, often called the West's most prolific killer, Charlie Goodnight, one of the great cowboys, and Judge Roy Bean, the hanging judge, the Law West of the Pecos. He weaves these people with his fictional characters like Pea, the Captain, and Ned Brookshire to make a very effective and entrancing novel. "Streets of Laredo" is at times violent, amusing, depressing, and at all times interesting. A fine novel, and worthy of its predecessor, "Lonesome Dove." You can't go wrong with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Bleak but Worth It
Review: McMurtry wrote this book while convalescing after heart surgery that left him, in his own words, shattered -- unable to write and devastated by depression. The book reflects that terrible time by bringing the characters of Lonesome Dove brutally down off of the romantic clouds readers and reviewers (and definitely not McMurtry) put them on after Lonesome Dove became a sensation. The character you'd expect to be the sequel's main character is dead before the book even begins, and Captain Call's deep decline is rendered in pitiless detail. But while Streets of Laredo is bleak enough that it sometimes feels like a Cormac McCarthy western, it's not a cheat -- McMurtry is true to his characters and offers a stark reminder that Lonesome Dove was also a brutal book. Resist the temptation to read it the second you finish Lonesome Dove, but read it.
Rating:
Summary: Streets of Laredo....excellence
Review: No author quite like McMurphy has dealt such memorable characters that you enjoy following them book after book. With Lonesome Dove, his well-deserved Pulitzer Prizer winning novel, he introduced us to an outfit in the West who, in nine-hundred pages, are planning to ranch cattle in Montana (was it Montana, though? I forget). We were introduced to the whole Hat Creek Outfit and fell into understanding w/ the old yet undiminished friendship between Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call. A lot happened in the novel and I was left w/ that rush, a rush that only comes when I complete a novel so grand and so moving that I'm almost regretful to place it on my finished list. Well, I was left w/ the same feeling after this novel. The characters, man, are excellent. The book is not as long as its predecessor, you should know, yet McMurtry boasts such lively, illuminating scenes, and harbors equally lively, illuminating characters within its pages. Joey Garza and his mother Maria alone are reason enough to read this novel. Call, Lorena, and Pea Eye return and it makes you feel sad yet proud at how they turned out (Call's now an old man, fight is almost out of him; Pea Eye realizes he can't keep going out to help the Captain because he now has a family with Lorena; and Lorena is now an educated, strong mother and wife... reminds you of Clara Allen). What I really love about McMurtry's novel is that it doesn't always end happily... a lot of death, a lot of violence, a lot of unresolved matters. I won't say what they are because I think Lonesome Dove fans should give it a chance... it's a prize!!!
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