Rating: 
Summary: Worst McMurtry book ever
Review: As a long time fan of Larry McMurtry, this book was a big disappointment. I rated Lonesome Dove as one of the best books of all time. Sin Killer is one of the worst. The characters are unbelievable, the story line is non-existent. McMurtry's characters in previous books have always been so life-like and interesting. Sin Killer characters could not for a moment be considered real, nor be representative of the period which McMurtry writes about. Don't waste your time with this one.
Rating:
Summary: A dissapointment
Review: An unfocued annoying cast of characters. It has none of the magic, none of the bigger than life sense of place of Lonesome Dove. Mr. McMurty should have stopped and rested on the laurels of having created the Western equivilent of a Gone With the Wind classic in Lonesome Dove.
Now his new novel leaves you with a sense of embarassment to have spent nearly twenty bucks on a book that didn't deliver a good read. From the history angle of the Western Genre, Sin Killer offers little to be believed. It offers the type of writing you expect from a first time writer, not the craftsman McMurty proved he was with Lonesome Dove.
Rating:
Summary: Stop at book one.
Review: I also loved "Lonesome Dove". So I bought "Sin Killer". I did not expect another "Lonesome Dove", however I did expect something better than what I got. "Sin Killer" is one of the few books that I did not finish. I got just over half way through and gave up. It was pointless, and poorly written with no depth to the characters, none of which had any redeeming qualities. If you must read this book, get it from the library don't buy it. My mother an avid reader did, and she quit about two thirds of the way through. At least she saved her money.
A note to Mr. McMurtry. When you sit down to write the rest of the "Sin Killer" tetralogy....don't.
Rating: 
Summary: Will the real author of "Sin Killer" please stand up!
Review: If you're into Barbara Cartland romance novels then "Sin Killer" is the book for you. I've read all of the McMurtry westerns and I was confused by this one. The plot revolved around a romance between the Sin Killer and Tasmin a spoiled English wench from the buffoonish Berrybender family. The book jacket should have been illustrated with a cowboy hat wearing Fabio embracing some bonnet wearing, buxom bimbo. The characters are one dimensional and downright absurd. Whoever wrote the book jacket NEVER read this book. It stated that Lord Berrybender came to America to broaden the horizons of his children. NO, he came simply to hunt. He didn't care one wit for his children. Maybe the book jacket author wrote "Sin Killer". Will the real author of "Sin Killer" please stand up.
Rating: 
Summary: The Berrybenders, part I
Review: The only other book I've read by this prolific author has been "Lonesome Dove", and that one impressed me so much that I decided to read this new one, because it was about the "old West", so to speak. It was a wise decision on my part, for I enjoyed the book very much. The writing is excellent, and the plot, while a bit odd, is quite interesting. The Berrybender family, travelling in a "Ship of Fools", is out to see the West in 1832. These spoiled English aristocrats have no clue as to how to behave in a strange country with different ustoms, so most of them go on acting as if they are still at home, with devastating consequences at times. There are deaths, mutilations, ravishings, amputations, but through it all, the pater familias acts as if he's still on his estate, and the lord of all he surveys. This is going to be a four part saga, and I can't wait to read the next installment, which should tell you a lot about how much I liked this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Fresh Eyes
Review: First things first: I have never read Lonesome Dove. This is my first Larry McMurtry novel. Westerns are rarely on my nightstand. Without Lonesome Dove as a measuring stick, I found Sin Killer enjoyable and unique. Sin Killer is the first intallment in a planned tetralogy involving the adventures of the British Berrybender family on four great rivers, beginning with the Missouri in 1832. It is also the story of the army of servants, native chiefs, tribes and trappers as they float down the river on a steamboat. The family is hilariously clueless and ill-informed about the New World. McMurtry indicates straight away that this will be a comic, as well as bloody, novel, as the boy Bobbety drops his oar in the river. "Do get it Tasmin...I'm bleeding...I fear the piranhas will inevitably attack." Of course there are no piranhas, but there is plenty of bloodshed along the way, as various family members are maimed and killed at rate that would be alarming if it were not so amusing. Much of the novel focuses on the Berrybender's eldest daughter, Tasmin, and her relationship with the wild preacher nicknamed the Sin Killer. McMurtry describes their relationship, and the west in general, with little of the romanticism often associated
with Westerns. Also absent are cliches such as horses and cowboys. It is a refreshing perspective. Several reviewers have remarked that the novel is a total farce, but I don't share that view. Describing life on the river as rather disastrous (not to mention nasty, brutish and short) is completely valid. But there is more to Sin Killer than just comedy and violence. McMurtry paints a picture of a world that is in flux: The trappers and traders, native peoples and European settlers have influenced each other and the physical landscape in familiar-and unexpected- ways. There are moments of real beauty among the chaos, and McMurtry is clearly a writer with precision and eloquence. Sin Killer is a page turner that will make you wonder what direction the next three novels will take.......Three and a half stars.
Rating:
Summary: Did Larry McMurtry actually write this book, and if so,why?
Review: In his long and distinguished career, few contemporary authors have done what McMurtry has accomplished in making the American West of the Eighteen Hundreds come alive. The boldly realistic descriptive story lines, combined with sets of complex characters who are presented so forcefully, that they live and breathe in a manner which successfully urges the reader to feel a strong kinship with their lives and travails, are what has enthralled his readers.
For an author's style to change as the author grows and ages, is not at all unusual. Most style changes probably occur as his perceptions change, either because of an event in his life, or an event in his world, or when the writer believes he has something different to say.
What is so hard to fathom in his new book "The Sin Killer", the first of four volumes, is what he can possibly be trying to do or say. By presenting a story form which appears meaningless, along with a cast of cartoonish puppet like characters who are shown and displayed with neither peronality, depth, or more than the simplest aura of one dimensionality, McMurtry must be trying to tell us something. The question is - What?
To his long and loyal readers, the book must come as a great dissapointment. Can more of his intent be revealed as the next three volumes appear, (If they appear). Let us fervently hope so.
Rating:
Summary: Airliner fare
Review: Like so many other reviewers, I can't see this book in the same league with Lonesome Dove; hard to re-create the joy and novelty of the first reading of that book. Much like Texasville, the characters are just over-the-top burlesque. Probably a more fitting comparison would be a Japanese Kabuki theatre. But..., if you're stuck on a long coast-to-coast flight, the story line can keep you turning the pages.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing
Review: McMurtry's latest novel is set in 1832, as a familial band of English nobility and their sizable group of retainers set forth on the Missouri River for an adventure. The novel's theme of Old World meets New World is glaringly obvious, and as shallow as the river on which it is set. The characters most often are caricatures - at time I thought, "Was this written by Monty Python?" Nevertheless, McMurtry's lyric pen and ability to conjure up the geography of this once unspoilt country are intact. Sin Killer is the first of a planned tetralogy (four books), and one can only hope that theis master of Western frontier fiction returns to form in the remaining books.
Rating:
Summary: Not Lonesome Dove
Review: It is the story of a misplaced English family in the great West. It has many colorful characters and lots of action and adventure, but nothing is fleshed out enough. The characters are so many that you don't get to point that you care enough about them. There are Indian kidnappings, a love story, bad weather, sexual intrigues and even with all that you don't seem to care enough to be really enthralled. This is not Lonesome Dove, but then what is?
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