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LONESOME DOVE's second prequel, COMANCHE MOON, fills in the middle years of Gus McCrae
and Woodrow Call. Seasoned veterans of the Texas Rangers, but no less inept at
dealing with life's other challenges --- namely, women --- Gus and Call are once again at
the mercy of an unforgiving landscape and a hardheaded commander.
Captain Inish Scull leads his men in pursuit of the infamous Comanche horse thief, Kicking
Wolf, over icy paths that unexpectedly dissect with those of an old adversary, Buffalo
Hump. This time Buffalo Hump has other problems: a disobedient
half-breed son, Blue Duck, and his own encroaching old age.
As Gus and Call deal with the harsh realities of Ranger life in a country teeming with
unscrupulous whites and defiant Comanches, they are also called upon to face the
challenges of the human heart. Gus is still trying to woo Clara and Call is
turning a blind eye to the fact that a young whore, Maggie, wants to marry him.
In COMANCHE MOON, Larry McMurtry turns his storytelling eye more fully on other characters
and their travails. Kicking Wolf stalks Captain Scull and his mythic-sized
horse. Captain Scull meets up with Ahumado, a Mexican bandit king with ice
water for blood and an ever-changing retinue of torture techniques. And the
people of Austin face the fury of Buffalo Hump.
This epic story in the LONESOME DOVE tetralogy continues the McMurtry tradition of
compelling storytelling combined with an unerring sense of time and place.
--- Reviewed by Jami Edwards
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