Customer Reviews

Sin Killer (Western Series)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(35)

 

 

Larry McMurtry is one of the best known western writers today. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his "Lonesome Dove" trilogy and is also known for "Terms of Endearment" and "The Last Picture Show". Now, he's taken on a big task - a four-novel series he calls "The Berrybender Narratives". This book, "Sin Killer" is Book 1 and was just published in May of 2002.

A mere 300 pages long, it's a wild comedic ride with the Berrybender family in 1832. They've come over from England and are on a boat making its way up the Missouri River. There's Lord Berrybender, his wife, his mistress, six of his 14 legitimate children, servants, guides, tutors, artists and a couple of Indian chiefs traveling home after being feted in Washington. The family is rich and spoiled and totally clueless. They meet a variety of tragedies but the writer presents it all as a farce, and I couldn't help laughing out loud at times.

Central to the plot is the oldest daughter, Tasmin. She falls in love with an American God-fearing frontiersman named Jim Snow, nicknamed "Sin Killer" by the Indians. Their romance is hilarious as are the other events in the book, as the many characters meet with accidents, violent death and love affairs. Several of the women are held captive by the Indians, some of the men are caught in a snowstorm while out shooting buffalo, and the wild and wooly frontier itself plays a role in the story. There are lots and lots of characters who romp across the pages, each with a distinctive personality, profession and passion. I loved them all.

This is a fun book, not to be taken seriously. It's just pure entertainment all the way and the action never stops. I loved it. And, since all the threads of the complex plot were certainly not tied together on the last page, I am eagerly awaiting Book 2. I sure hope it's released soon because I can't wait to continue this very enjoyable saga. Recommended.

Reading through the reviews for Sin Killer, I see there is a decided split of opinion about this one. I really enjoyed the novel, but I can see how many would absolutely hate it. I think if you are looking for a Western in the Lonesome Dove vein, keep looking and don't pick this one up. I think the publishers do this novel a disservice by packaging it in the manner of Lonesome Dove. If you enjoy a good toungue-in-cheek romp, one that will take you a little below the surface if you want to, then give Sin Killer a try. Larry McMurtry is certainly a talented writer. I have read many of his novels, and on the storytelling level, none ever fail to disappoint and in that connection Sin Killer makes enjoyable reading. The story of the Berrybender family--an eccentric collection of British nutcases in the early 18th century who decide to explore the American west on a steamboat so the borderline insane patriarch can go hunting--is, of course, absurd. The story, however, allows McMurtry to explore the differences between American and British culture at the time, enabling him to smash through the assumptions that the Americans were wild and uncivilized. Most characters in the novel (except for perhaps the Sin Killer himself) are full of folly and hubris, and McMurtry exploits them to our benefit. The characters in the novel form a microcosm of their respective societies--everyone being an exaggeration. The story is fun and makes for fun reading (so long as you can forget you ever read Lonesome Dove). If you can handle this one not being anything like Lonesome Dove (other than it being written by McMurtry and taking place in the American West), if you are looking for an enjoyable, humorous read, pick this one up. It's a lot of fun.

If you've been nostalgic for the years when Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Maverick were hits on television, take heart. Larry McMurtry is still cranking out the gothic westerns.
SIN KILLER is the first offering of a four-volume work set along the Missouri River in the 1830's. An English family that includes Lord and Lady Berrybender and their fourteen children along with their entourage is bent on exploring the untamed American West. The cast of characters numbers fifty-eight (Don't worry, there's a glossary), headed by Tasmin Berrybender, a willful young lady who falls in love with Jim Snow (think Jim Bridger) and is nonplused when he doesn't hang on her every word and deed. The other plot line involves how often Lord Albany Berrybender gets himself in some kind of pickle, shooting off his toes at one point, getting caught in a blizzard in another.
Twelve-year-old Mary Berrybender was perhaps the most engaging character. She is erudite beyond her years and has mysterious powers, the ability to sniff out edible roots, Jerusalem artichokes, tubers, onions.
Ever since LONESOME DOVE and Blue Duck, I've been impressed with McMurtry's facility with Indian names. In this one, we've got Big White, The Hairy Horn, Neighing Horses, Blue Thunder, and Cat Head. Three of these are old men being escorted back home from a parley in Washington D.C. by Toussaint Charbonneau (the guide on the Louis and Clark expedition). He keeps losing them when the steamboat snags on a sandbar.
There's lots of ravaging and fornication going on, rather much if you're the prudish sort. McMurtry is having a wonderful time making fun of nineteenth century aristocracy. SIN KILLER would qualify as a comic novel if so many characters weren't falling down stairs breaking their necks or being hacked to death by axes. The novel also comes to a screeching halt, abrupt, even for a four-part novel.

After writing the outstanding Lonesome Dove, it is understandable that McMurtry has a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, Sin Killer misses by a very long mile. The story revolves around a wealthy English family that has hired a steamer to steam up the Missouri River simply so the bombastic, sex addicted father can hunt. McMurtry surrounds the family with a host of eclectic characters, all of which seem to be having sex with each other. The Sin Killer is a young man raised by the Indians and given back to the whites, in this case a hypocritcal bible thumper. The Sin Killer, thus, tries to kill "sin" in everyone. You, know, I don't even want to go on because this book was so lacking in plot, character development, and so full of characters I couldn't give a damn for. I am a big McMurtry fan and I am sorely disappointed with this effort.

Just finished reading SIN KILLER by McMurtry. I have always enjoyed read his books but was greatly disappointed in his latest endeavor. There seems little if any plot or story line and his attempts at farce fall far short in my mind. If this is an example of the first book of his tetralogy, you can definitely count me out as far as reading any further volumes in this series.

The characters in the book don't a semblance of establishing any personality---they are shallow, predictable, and without any substance in my opinion.

I'm disappointed in McMurtry and wonder if he is trying to make it on his name and past writings with this current series.

It's 1832, and Lord Albany Berrybender has chartered a steamboat to take him up the Missouri River on a hunting expedition. Albany is one of the richest aristocrats in England, and also a dissolute, selfish, old fool. Along for the ride are his wife Constance, six of their fourteen spoiled children, fifteen of nineteen servants, an aging parrot named Prince Talleyrand, the staghound Tintamarre, and a gaggle of American talent hired to ease their way, including Toussaint Charbonneau, the guide for the Lewis and Clark Expedition many years previous.

The first noticeable feature of SIN KILLER, the start of a four-book series, is the lengthy cast of players requiring a two-page character list. In addition to all those on the boat, there's a couple dozen ashore - Indians, trappers, and such - to provide local color. Chief among these is the SIN KILLER, a young trapper named Jim Snow, who has an exaggerated sense of God-fearing righteousness and an awkward way with women.

Since McMurtry's tales of the Old West are, for its characters, affairs perilous to life and limb, I immediately expected some of the English crowd to soon become victims of misadventure. (After all, such a large number is a heavy load to carry.) I wasn't disappointed.

It's apparent early on that the main protagonist of the book, and I suspect the series, is Tasmine, Lord Berrybender's independent and willful oldest daughter. Nothing scares her, not even her Old Man. And I expect the villain of the piece, the cruel, old Aleut-Russian squaw Draga, who passes herself off as a sorceress, won't scare Tasmine either if and when their paths cross. (Draga is a psycho in the grand tradition of other McMurtry psychos such as Blue Duck and Mox Mox. Remember them?)

Judging from this first installment, there are a couple of reasons I don't think the Berrybender saga will be the author's best work. First of all, crucial events happen relatively quickly without too much plot or character development. Perhaps, as McMurtry gets older, he's driven to get it written and published faster. (You never know when you're going to be ambushed and scalped by savages.) Secondly, a lot of the action and dialogue has a slapstick quality about it that seems forced. However, at 300 pages, SIN KILLER is a quick, engaging read.

I loved McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE trilogy. (The 1989 miniseries adaptation of that title starring Robert Duvall is my favorite western of all time.) While perhaps not presaging such excellence, this first volume of the Berrybender epic left me looking forward to the next. Oh, and I hope Prince Talleyrand continues to survive. Like Gus's pigs in LD, he's very cool.

As noted in some of the other reviews here, this is in some ways not McMurtry's strongest effort. "Last Picture Show" it ain't, but this "first in a series" effort may still have a few redeeming virtues.

There *are* some pretty annoying flaws here. Early on, as Lady Tasmin is being returned to the steamer by Jim Snow (a.k.a. "Sin Killer"), she out of the blue starts asking about his plans to travel to Santa Fe, and refers to him guiding groups of travellers. I went "huh?" and spent a lot of time searching the previous pages for even a hint of any of this Santa Fe stuff. Maybe it was there at one point, but the scene must have hit the cutting room floor. We're at a loss as to where and how Tasmin pried this information out of the taciturn Mr. Snow. Somebody was not sweating the details on that point, and the same loose attitude seems evident elsewhere.

If you read "Lonesome Dove" and its sequel "Streets of Laredo", you'll recall how gleefully the author pops his characters in the meat grinder. Let's just say there's a lot more hamburger in this one. But you'll hardly miss most of the thin cardboard characters, so it's easy to appreciate McMurtry's dark sense of humor in mangling them. The losses here are like a 'Toon getting crushed by a falling piano, compared to "Lonesome Dove", where they were genuinely affecting. (Especially in the TV version, when the boys are forced to string up that Dan Tanna fellow.)

Despite these reservations, I got to the end of the book wanting to find out what happened next. Clever fellow, that Larry McMurtry. He starts out with a ship full of European stereotypes, badly out of touch with reality. He steadily puts them in touch with a very harsh and often fatal reality. Maybe something more real in the way of a story will emerge.

This is billed as the first of a four-volume series, so I guess I'm willing to wait for Volume II. There's a chance that McMurtry will return to form now that he's pared down the cast of characters a bit. I'll leave it to the consumer advocates out there to debate whether this four-volume thing is a cynical marketing ploy or a legitimate attempt to craft a Grand Epic.

Certainly, the author has done more with fewer words.

I love it when "reviewers", who fancy themselves as writers, come to Amazon to pick on their betters. They whine about "bad" books and "bad" writing, while at the same time their self-important, so-called reviews barely recognize the elements of style. Listen people, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but before you submit a review to Amazon in an attempt to mush McMurtry's work, check your own. Make sure your words are spelled correctly, your punctuation clean and your prose tight before you dare bash Larry McMurtry (or be sure to click that you're under thirteen years old before you submit).

I personally don't pick a book based on the literary merits of the author. I'm looking for a good story. Not necessarily "great", or "epic", or "groundbreaking"--- plain old "good" works for me.

I imagine that once you've won a Pulitzer Prize there's nowhere to go but down, but that doesn't make "Sin Killer" bad. It's good, no more or less than that. If you want a rerun of "Lonesome Dove" or "Streets of Loredo", then reread them, but don't come here and whine because "Sin Killer" doesn't measure up. Jeez, give the guy a break.

A tale about a massive English aristocratic family, traveling down the Missouri River on a steamboat would not have been my first choice for a western, but the notion of taking a powerful noble family and plopping them down in a situation where the rules of their society carry absolutely no weight was amusing so I ordered it and wasn't disappointed.

One of the larger complaints about "Sin Killer" here is that there are too few likeable characters. This is true. These people are pompous, arrogant, cruel, uncaring and worse. The female lead in this is called Tasmin, and her selfishness and callous inhumanity could only equal Scarlet O'Hara's.

Her sisters hate her, and she likewise hates them. Her so-called parents don't bother with her, and she in return defies them every chance she gets. They do not have one nice thing to say to or about each other. We, the readers, could care less about any of them, and that bugs some people here, I guess.

The focus of "Sin Killer" is on the Berrybenders (whom you come to hate) but to me, the hero of this story isn't among that family. There is no diamond in the rough in that clan. The hero of "Sin Killer" is primarily the hostile environment they have to endure as they run this wild, savage gauntlet down the Missouri. The pleasure in this book comes from watching the rich nobles being taken down, notch after notch, as they continue their journey believing they can boss and bully their way through the frontier, and the only one who refuses to learn from the experience is Lord Berrybender.

The good guys here are the people, who in spite of the Berreybender's attitudes, struggle to help them down the Missouri. Watching Tasmin's foil, Jim Snow a.k.a. Raven Brave, a.k.a Sin Killer slap Tasmin silly, shake her like a rag-doll, order her to shut up, call her and her family fools, put a smile on my face every time. He is her Rhett Butler. Her snooty ways only confuses and aggravates him as it would any of us. He and the rest of the American Frontiersman, the Natives and anyone who puts the Berrybenders in their place are the saviors of this story.

The negatives to me are too many characters and too few that I give a damn about, but I am enjoying watching them learn the hard way. The book does end abruptly and without much resolution. I doubt I'll see much resolving until the end of the fourth book.

"Lonesome Dove", "Sin Killer" is not, but it is a damn good read.

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.

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.