Book: Deadwood
Author: Peter Dexter
Pages: 365
This is my 95th read for the year
What Amazon says:
Deadwood, Dakota Territories, 1876: Legendary gunman Wild Bill Hickcock and his friend Charlie Utter have come to the Black Hills town of Deadwood fresh from Cheyenne, fleeing an ungrateful populace. Bill, aging and sick but still able to best any man in a fiar gunfight, just wants to be left alone to drink and play cards. But in this town of played-out miners, bounty hunters, upstairs girls, Chinese immigrants, and various other entrepeneurs, and miscreants, he finds himself pursued by a vicious sherriff, a perverse whore man bent on revenge, and a besotted Calamity Jane. Fueled by liquor, sex, and violence, this is the real wild west, unlike anything portrayed in the dime novels that first told its story.
This was a pretty boring book. I think part of the problem is that I listened to it and the guy who read it was pretty monotone. I read this one for two reasons - 1) for a challenge - I needed a book that took place in the Dakotas and 2) Because years ago I watched the Deadwood series on HBO and really enjoyed it. This was barely like it. There doesn't seem to be a ton of plot - it seems more like a collection of stories with Wild Bill in the center. There are a few characters from the TV show in the book, and when I read the reviews, I see that it is pretty unrelated to the story. Ah well. There isn't much development, and the writer is long winded on needless details (in my opinion).
Stars: 2.5
