Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry was first published in 1993 and is part of the Lonesome Dove series of western novels which also include Lonesome Dove (1985), Dead Man’s Walk (1995) and Comanche Moon (1997). It’s a pretty thick book but it reads easily.
Streets of Laredo is a gruesome novel of the Wild West. If you feel like reading about women who get raped all the time, whores who turn into schoolteachers, and girls who are molested, then you’d better find this book in a second-hand bookstore. Don’t bother with a new one. The money ain’t worth it.
But if you hate full-grown men who ‘water’ their pants, crippled ex-rangers/ex-marksmen/ex-heroes/ex-whatever-you feel-like-used-to-be-manly-in-the-Wild-West who have to be helped while urinating by ex-whores; mothers stabbing their own children; sons drowning their siblings; and, last but not least (the enumeration could go on forever), criminals who like burning people alive (especially women and children) by pouring whiskey on them and rubbing grease in their eyes (so it hurts more), then skip this book and have a peaceful sleep next to your wife / husband / girlfriend / boyfriend.
Full stop.
