Desperadoes

Rating:
Summary: Cinematic, smell-the-horses writing style
Review: Desperadoes is a fictionalized account of the exploits of the Dalton gang, but it reads like the truth. Ron Hansen breathes life into these characters.

Hansen's cinematic style put me in the moment. I could smell the nervous horses as Grat crept among them at night, culling a rancher's string of ponies. I could feel the cold trickle down my neck as Bob tipped back his rain-soaked stetson during a stakeout.

Although the Daltons' story is overshadowed by their dreams of greedy glory and instances of thoughtless brutality, as Hansen tells it, they still displayed the occasional burst of honor or gallantry. Emmett, Bob and Grat Dalton became real for me.