The Fourth Durango

by Ross Thomas

The first Durango is in Spain; the second in Mexico; and the third is a ski town in the mountains of Colorado. But the fourth Durango is a small isolated beach city in southern California with a population of 9,861, no industry to speak of, and some magnificent weather that its citizens can’t eat or pay their bills with. It’s also the setting for Ross Thomas’ witty and ingenious new novel.

To make civic ends meet, Durango’s beautiful and savvy mayor, B.D. Huckins, and her wily chief of police, Sid Fork, have gone into the hideout business, selling sanctuary to those whose former friends and associates are either trying to kill them or have them killed.

Durango’s newest hideout customer is the garrulous and brilliant Jack Adair, an ex-chief justice of a state supreme court and alleged bribe-taker, who has just completed a stretch in a federal penitentiary for tax evasion. He is quite convinced, and with good reason, that someone wants him dead.

Adair dispatches his son-in-law, the quiet and careful Kelly Vines, to open negotiations with the mayor and the chief for a hideout in the fourth Durango.

It’s shortly after these negotiations begin that the false priest arrives in town.

And it’s shortly after this that the killings begin.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Noir

312 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1989

About the author

Ross Thomas was an American writer of crime fiction. He is best known for his witty thrillers that expose the mechanisms of professional politics. He also wrote several novels under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck about professional go-between Philip St. Ives.

Thomas served in the Philippines during World War II. He worked as a public relations specialist, reporter, union spokesman, and political strategist in the USA, Bonn (Germany), and Nigeria before becoming a writer.

His debut novel, The Cold War Swap, was written in only six weeks and won a 1967 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Briarpatch earned the 1985 Edgar for Best Novel. In 2002 he was honored with the inaugural Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award, one of only two authors to earn the award after their death (the other was 87th Precinct author Evan Hunter in 2006).

He died of lung cancer two months before his 70th birthday.

Reviews

[Marty Fried · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the characters, and, as always, the writing style of Ross Thomas. He never seems to use more words than necessary, and I never feel like I want to skim over any sections. He always seems to have a lot of interesting characters, mostly likable and the stories are usually good with interesting twists and turns. This one, while not the best, was no exception.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a fun book! *The Fourth Durango* can be found in California, where the mayor and police chief run a nice little racket of offering refuge for those on the run. A disgraced judge and his disbarred lawyer son-in-law try to convince them to take them in and hide them from mysterious forces who seem to want them both dead.

A twisted little plot with plenty of great writing. I didn't take Sara Paretsky's warning in the new introduction to heart and so I didn't pay close enough attention to all the asides and "minor" characters and their stories, so the finale crept up on me and smacked me upside the head, with no warning and a barely understood plan. I did exactly like she warned me not to do - treat it like a page turner, absolutely glued to the pages to see what Thomas would give us next, but not paying close enough attention to the stories being told while they were being told.

I read this in about 3 days and thought about it while I wasn't reading it, which is always a good sign. Fascinating characters and a twisted plan that I am willing to believe would completely hang together if I were to reread it. It's simply amazing to think of how Thomas ever pieced this together. You can be damned sure he isn't one of those that plots on the fly. This is too tightly knit for that!

But the characters were fun. I particularly enjoyed how the reader doesn't really know what is going on, but I could also be sure the characters didn't really either. Sometimes, an author will keep the reader confused by not having the characters tell us what they are thinking, but in this case, the characters are as confused as we are and that is all just part of the fun. Fantastic! And I can't wait to dive back into his oeuvre!

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The late Ross Thomas wrote twenty-five novels about crime, espionage, politics, and corruption between 1966 and his death at age sixty-nine in 1995. No two are alike, and every one of them is a gem. They brim over with wit, insight, brilliant characterization, and Thomas' distinctively spare writing style. In recent years, St. Martin's Griffin has brought out new paperback editions which are also available for the Kindle. Many of these titles include introductions by Thomas' contemporaries and successors in the crime genre. Among them are such successful practitioners of the craft as Sara Paretsky, Lawrence Block, Joe Gores, and the late Donald E. Westlake. Every introduction is a paean to Thomas' consummate writing skill.

The Fourth Durango, published in 1989, was one of Thomas' last contributions to his many fans. As in nearly all his other novels, the characters are entirely new. Unlike most successful mystery writers, Ross Thomas didn't make things easy on himself by adopting a formula and a fixed cast of characters in a series. (However, there are a few who appear in more than one novel, including Cyril "Mac" McCorkle and Michael Padillo, who own a pub together and become involved in nefarious activities involving spies and a mysterious government agency; con men Artie Wu and Quincy Durant, and Washington lawyer Howard Mott.)

In The Fourth Durango, disbarred attorney Kelly Vines reunites with his friend Jack Adair, formerly chief justice of the supreme court of an unnamed state who is leaving behind a stretch in the federal maximum-security penitentiary near Lompoc, California. Jack had been convicted on the bogus grounds of tax evasion because the feds couldn't prove a bribery charge. Now, someone is trying to kill him for reasons unknown. Kelly spirits him off to the nearby town of Durango, California, "the city that God forgot." (It's the fourth Durango because it isn't any of the ones in Mexico, Colorado, or Spain.) There, Kelly and Jack seek help from the beauteous Mayor B. D. Huckins and her boyfriend, Chief of Police Sid Fork. The two are delighted to hide the pair away indefinitely for a considerable cash consideration. Skullduggery of the highest order is afoot. In fact, hiding away fugitives is the town's major industry and provides the revenue to keep open the schools and the VD clinic.

Once the two men begin settling in at Durango, we slowly begin to learn the backstory that explains Kelly's disbarment and Jack's conviction. Meanwhile, all hell breaks loose as first one, then other murders crop up, and numerous other complications ensue. It's all a glorious clusterf**k. And it's fun all the way.

[Michael P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

How can a book that begins so well be so bad? There is only enough story here for a novella, but Thomas pads with so many flashbacks that the eyes roll when you come to another and there are long explanations about the past (sort of flashback but in current time) and an inexcusable revelation 100 pages near the end that two of the characters knew but if they had revealed it before the plot would have had little suspense. Add to this a too convoluted plot that by the end seems improbably silly and you have a bad book. Some of Thomas’s virtues are here, such his layering detail to make the world seem real, but this is circumvented by the improbabilities. This book is good enough to finish, but bad enough to leave you wondering why you did.

[Ross McClintock · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice pulpy bit of fun where the protagonists were crooked politicians. Most of the story unfolded during flashbacks, and it was a delight to see how it played out. The premise is a small town in California offers sanctuary to criminals on the run, in exchange for a sizable fee. Of course, sanctuary doesn't feel that safe with bodies piling up in the town of Durango.

[Sam Reaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

When my own writing is not going well, I often go and pull a Ross Thomas off the shelf. Reading him is a lesson in efficient story-telling, precise, economical expression, dry wit and polished, razor-sharp dialogue.
This is one of his later ones, published in 1988 and set in southern California, in the fictional title town somewhere north of Santa Barbara (the other three Durangos are in Spain, Mexico and Colorado). The story is a typical Thomas intrigue, devious but credible, rooted in the real-world corruption he knew all about from a career in journalism and politics. Jack Adair, a former state supreme court justice in an unnamed state (Thomas's native Oklahoma?) is released from federal prison after serving a term for taking a bribe, a crime for which he was framed. His son-in-law Kelly Vines picks him up at the prison and takes him to Durango, where mayor B.D. Huckins and police chief Sid Fork (yes, most Ross Thomas characters have quirky names) run a profitable business sheltering people on the run. Here they hunker down and wait for the people who want Adair dead to catch up with them. The complicated back story emerges piece by piece as a mysterious killer starts to bump people off in Durango, drawing media attention and getting closer and closer to Adair and Vines. There will be a violent climax, as in all Thomas tales.
Good stuff from a master of the intrigue novel and a keen observer of American culture from the sixties through the nineties, an underrated writer who deserves to be remembered.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic airplane reading...Thomas is an economical writer who nevertheless refuses to skimp on detail and makes his descriptions of local geography, for example, interesting and pertinent...you are taken to a seedy yet sympathy-generating milieu in which lots of awful things happen and most importantly on this trip, make the reader feel like they are not in a damn airplane.

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Ross Thomas' last works, this one stands out not for plot (though it's a typical late-era Thomas story, with a family initially murdering itself over oil and then just murdering over money as a general principle) but for the characters, who are not Thomas' typical superspooks or arch-cons but instead everymen with peculiar habits, normal failings, and a light and genuine touch of warmth--everyone wants to do SOMETHING good, even if they acknowledge their moral failures in the means to the end.

Thomas masterfully creates a sense of place in The Fourth Durango, matched only by his depiction of Oklahoma City (where he grew up) in The Briar Patch. Durango, CO is a failing small town with all of the attendant woes and wonders. He very neatly presaged the municipal bankruptcies of the late 2000s twenty years ahead of time, and I wished he had lived to turn the town into a repeat setting for later novels.

Less grim and violent that many of his darker novels yet possessed of a specific melancholy that underlines his entire vision of our doomed economic system and the middle class' attempts to survive it, the book is a dark mirror for small town nostalgia.

[Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nascosti a Durango
Non so quanto da noi questo autore sia conosciuto o apprezzato, io rimasi colpito favorevolmente dal suo 'Pelican Bay', dalla rappresentazione di quella realtà criminale.

Thomas ha una chiarezza di esposizione invidiabile, e qui, in questo romanzo, è la sua carta vincente. Forse l'unica, perché non si salta sulla sedia, non si freme per la tensione benché si tratti di un intrigo con risvolti politici e omicidi vari.
Il romanzo è ambientato in quel di Durango, la quarta Durango - La prima Durango è in Spagna, la seconda in Messico, la terza è una località sciistica del Colorado. La quarta, invece, è l'altra faccia della California: quella povera e isolata dal resto del mondo - e ci sono 4 o 5 protagonisti principali.

In questo tipo di storie qualcuno immagino potrebbe annoiarsi senza tensione (o meglio, c'è, ma è costantemente tenuta sottotraccia; diciamo che non è protagonista), a me però non è capitato. Anzi, devo dire che sono stato bene in compagnia dei personaggi, ben delineati da dialoghi intelligenti perché intelligente è l'autore che li scrive, assistendo alle varie situazioni che affrontano.

Thomas non è un autore che strafà, ma nemmeno rigido, si avverte costantemente aleggiare nell'aria una certa dose di umorismo, ed è forse anche questo aspetto a tenere insieme il tutto nelle sue storie, anche quando il tutto non ha punte di inventiva o una trama complessa.

Non consiglierei Thomas a chiunque, figuriamoci, con tanti autori di bestsellers a cui dedicare attenzione verrebbe messo da parte, sullo scaffale più in alto della libreria a prender polvere.
Lo consiglierei a chi, appunto, non corre dietro ai bestsellers e ha, ovviamente, un minimo interesse nel genere, avvertendolo però che questo autore, come scrissi per 'Pelican Bay', rende normale il *normale*.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 4 out of 5]

This might be the first Ross Thomas that dropped sufficient clues to allow me to guess (most of) the ending before it happened. It also was the first that, after starting hilariously, seemed to be turning gruesome, before a more typical Ross Thomas ending.

Still, despite three or four of his most whimsical writing, it’s no better than his fifth best, and perhaps less. Unusually for Thomas, he flubs a legal detail: in the case of husband and wife dying within an hour of each other—sometimes within 24 hours, depending on the State—the law presumes the couple died at the same time, allowing the secondary heirs to inherit.

Ross Thomas, ex-CIA agent, and dead now for about 40 years, long had been my favorite thriller author. For those who’ve missed him, try:

1) Briarpatch
2) Missionary Stew
3) If You Can’t Be Good
4) Chinaman’s Chance.

The last two listed are no longer in print, for slightly different violations of prevailing literary norms (such as “Can’t say ‘Chinaman’”). So grab a used copy while they still exist.

[Jay Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ross Thomas deserves some kind of award for writing the dialogue in his books in a way that keeps a reader going and wanting more. His characters are clever and funny. Their timing and wry delivery is a feature of a bygone era, owing something to great southern writers, and some other American classics like Elmore Leonard and Charles Portis. The dialogue is not the same, but it snaps and turns, and creates a sense of anticipation, as if the reader is always waiting for the punch line. That is one thing that gives The Fourth Durango a high rating in my estimation. The other is the ongoing commentary regarding American institutions like the government, the courts, bars and restaurants, marriage, and much, much more.

Thomas also gives characters very detailed physical descriptions that allow you to picture them initially, and read with that image in your mind. Most of the characters in this book are dressed (in my mind) like disco-era refugees with wide lapels, flared slacks, deep neckline drops, and barely buttoned shirts. Every reader will have their own filter to use, but it is possible to get a very good idea thanks to descriptions like this of police chief Sid Fork:

“Except for the thick side-wings of pewter-gray hair that had been swept back to rest on his ears, the man’s head was bald and both it and his long shrewd face were nicely tanned.

Perhaps to compensate for his baldness, the man had grown a pewter-gray mustache that Kelly Vines recognized from the old British films as being of the wing commander variety. The man’s eyebrows were a matching pewter-gray and almost bushy enough to shade hazel eyes that seemed more brown than green. There was also a big fine nose that poked out and down toward a thin wide mouth that looked, if not generous, at least friendly. Beneath the mouth was the cornerstone chin.”

There is an echo of Hemingway in the use of a string adjectives to describe a feature: “a thin wide mouth,” and “a big fine nose.” Ross Thomas was born in 1926 in Oklahoma City, so no doubt Ernest Hemingway was on his book shelf growing up. And then there is Sid Fork’s apparel and manner:

“…reaching into the pocket of a faded blue chambray work shirt that might have been bought years ago at Sears. From the pocket he removed a business card. His work shirt and scuffed driller boots were in studied contrast to his well-tailored blue pinstripe pants that obviously belonged to some absent but equally well tailored vest and coat. Despite the old work shirt and stomp boots, Vines thought the bald man looked like a suit. After reading the business card, Vines discovered he was right.”

The power of a description that includes “a faded blue chambray work shirt that might have been bought years ago at Sears,” and a pewter-gray mustache “of the wing commander variety,” should, for many readers bring forth a bald Sam Elliot lookalike with a downward variation on the bushy mustache. That image allows the reader to people his or her mind with a familiar person, and it makes the story much more lively in the reader’s mind.

The whole book is written in this manner. Every character, whether villain or heroine, or as it happens in his stories, existing somewhere on the continuum that includes both a little good and a little evil, has super specific details attached that evoke 70s or 80s images in the mind of the reader old enough to remember the time. They all come off a little dirty but very cool.

BD Huckins and her sister Dixie are the lively female leads in the story. But Thomas is not past creating a female villain, and he attaches a lot of unsavory details to these two characters. It makes a reader wonder why that might be? Both are willing to do things on the edge of morality and past it a ways. And that is where plenty of the interesting action takes place in books and in real life. Compromise and morality can go hand in hand.

In the end, that is why I can recommend this book and many of the books Ross Thomas wrote. The plot might be a little fantastic, but the characters feel real. Given the constraints that the characters face, readers need to consider, “Would I make that same choice? What would I do?” That makes for a book that feels a little noir, a bit retro, and very memorable.

[James Thane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike its more famous namesakes in Mexico, Spain and Colorado, the fourth Durango is a tiny town on the coast of California. It's almost inaccessible and has only about a foot (literally) of coastline, and so, although the weather is great, the town remains tiny and the tourists ignore it. The town is run by its beautiful mayor, B. D. Huckins, and her boyfriend, Sid Fork, who is the Chief of Police. B. D. and Sid blew into town years ago in a Volkswagen bus with some hippie friends and never left. Given that the town is very poor, B. D. and Sid supplement the meager municipal coffers by offering sanctuary to people on the run who need a place to hide out for a while.

Jack Adair was formerly the chief justice of the state supreme court in a midwestern state that remains unnamed. As the book opens, he is just being released from a federal prison in Lompoc, Californ1a where he's done a fifteen-month stretch for tax evasion. Jack is met at the prison gates by his Kelly Vines, his son-in-law and former lawyer. Vines is a "former" lawyer because he's been disbarred.

Adair knows that some people want him dead, for reasons that will take time to understand. Indeed, someone takes a crack at killing him as he is literally on his way out the prison door. To buy some time while they figure out how to deal with the threat, Vines negotiates a deal with Mayor Hutchins and Chief Fork to lay low in Durango for a while. Unfortunately, the bad guys are on their trail, even into Durango, and pretty soon there's death and destruction everywhere around the small and formerly peaceful town.

This is another great story from Ross Thomas, full of vivid and compelling characters. There's lots of action and dry humor, and the plot is first rate. As the story unfolds we gradually learn the backstory of the circumstances that led Adair to prison and Vines to be disbarred. It's a good one, and Vines and Adair are another pair of great protagonists from the author. Thomas was a master of this sort of tale and as usually happens with one of his books, I practically devoured it. I've been working my way back through his books in order and I'm really regretting the fact that I only have a few more to go.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been a constant, avid reader all my life – since I first learned to read – as I recall, about the age of 5, I’ve had at least one book in progress, sometimes more than one ever since. I’m now 77 – will be 78 next month. Although I’ve read a number of non-fiction books, now as a retired person, I mostly just entertain myself with novels. I’ll try a new author now and then, but there are some I consider ‘friends’ and I like authors with a long list of books – usually with some of the same ‘leading’ characters. So after a few years, I’ll kind of ‘rotate’ back to a ‘series’ I haven’t read in a while

There are some authors I truly enjoy, others I greatly respect, and unfortunately of course, some I’ve tried and discarded along the way. The subjects vary – I’m pretty partial to ‘mysteries’ – maybe my all-time favorite is Rex Stout and his Nero Wolfe books, other genre’s are favorites too – I very much enjoy the Patrick O’Brian Sea-faring stories with Aubrey and Maturin… some Sci-Fi along the way too….

One of my all-time favorites (In the Top-Ten for sure) is one I think is a vastly under-rated writer – Ross Thomas. Ross was ‘ahead of his time’ I think… and some publishers and/or readers may have been a bit off-put by his open discussions of cupidity, official corruption, and sex: all of which I would be willing to bet didn’t bother him much. He wrote novels that reflected what was just plain truth, and he did it very well. His books are well-plotted, well written (with some quirks, OK), humorous to a degree, and mostly just plain brilliant fun. Some are clearly better than others.

In my ‘Rotation’ of authors, I’ve been re-reading Ross Thomas’s books, and have just finished with ‘The Fourth Durango” – which I have to nominate as probably his all-time best book. It’s impeccably plotted, masterfully written, and along the way there is humor, and marvelous characterizations. One of the primary characters is ‘Jack Adair’ – and Thomas’s rendering of him totally evokes for me the image of old-time film actor William Powell, which is fun in itself. I see Dany DeVito as ‘Teddy”…

Anyway – THIS is are really marvelous book and I encourage all to enjoy it as I have.

[Craig Pittman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been working my way through all of Ross Thomas' thrillers this year, and this one made me stay up past midnight to finish it.

The set-up is, as per usual with Thomas, quite ingenious and darkly amusing. The action is set in a small town in California named Durango. It's not the better-known Durangos in Spain, Mexico or Colorado -- hence the title. In this fourth Durango, the town's main industry is obscurity. After Proposition 13 obliterated the city's budget, the gorgeous but unscrupulous mayor and her sometime lover the police chief cooked up a scheme where they let people on the run hide out there, for a price. The fugitives' money pays for keeping open the library, firehouse etc.

Then disgraced former state supreme court chief justice Jack Adair shows up with his son-in-law
disbarred lawyer Kelly Vines. Someone wants Adair dead, and that someone has already killed his son and his former cellmate from Lompoc prison. The reason why involves murder, incest and an immensely profitable oil and gas company, and before long it will lead to more murders in Durango as the killer gets closer and closer to Adair.

The story twists and turns but in the end turns out to be pretty simple. You'll probably spot the final twist coming from a mile away, but getting there is a fun ride, thanks to Thomas' usual twisted humor regarding money, power, sex and politics.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasted too much of my life not reading Ross Thomas novels. I’ve been going through them the last two years and he’s become one of my all-time favorite writers. The “Elmore Leonard of politics” label is quite apt and The Fourth Durango, a tale packed with great characters and a fun premise, is one of the reasons why.

The book itself is part mystery, part thinking person’s “thriller” and part excuse to get a bunch of people in a small town, raise the stakes, and have ’em bullcrap and/or screw each other, which is what Thomas is so good at. This was written near his life, yet he still had what made him great. The dialogue is snappy without being cliche. The plot is layered without being too complex. The resolution is predictable yet fun. Everyone just wants to drink, have sex and a good time. What’s wrong with that?

And most importantly, these books don’t overstay their welcome. You don’t walk away thinking heavy thoughts or grappling with difficult fictional circumstances that the characters dealt with. In other words, it’s escapism but it’s quality escapism.

As I often do in reviews of Thomas novels, I will once again lament why no one writes smart political thrillers like this anymore. Is it really that hard? You don’t need to be partisan or didactic. You just need to be clever and witty. It’s probably gauche to do so in the age of Trump but in different circumstances, politics can be an entertaining subject if you keep it relatively low stakes.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fourth Durango is a town with a heavy admission price because of its unique amenities. It is expensive California real estate with no beach or glitzy mansions. But if you need to hide out, it's the perfect location because, for a price, Mayor B.D. Huckins and Chief of Police Sid Fork will have your back. By paying the protection fees, you're even doing your civic duty because it's how the Huckins/Fork team supports the library and the VD clinic after Proposition 13 wiped out the town's funding. It's just the ambiance needed by disbarred attorney Kelly Vines and former chief justice of the supreme court, Jack Adair, just released from a stretch in a federal penitentiary, with a murderer on his tail. It's a scenario only the ingenious mind of Ross Thomas could construct. Like all Thomas' tales, it's always hard to tell the good guys from the bad, and where the next double cross will come from, but the fun is in that telling.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first Ross Thomas I ever read, way back when the cover (no, not this one) somehow jumped out at me in the City Lbrary on Grand Parade in Cork. After that I grabbed every Ross Thomas book I ever saw and grew to bitterly regret the couple I loaned out that were never returned.

Durango is a remote California rown where the Maypr and the Chief of Police keep the civic funds topped up by keeping the odd wealthy fugitive safe. A disgraced former Jutice of a State Supreme Court just out of jail and his disbarred lawyer son-in-law may or may not be their next customers but there's a whole insanely complicated scheme at work and before long nice quiet, forgotten Durango is making headlines for all the wrong reasons, namely, moidah. Lotsa moidah.

Still as fresh and sharp and savage a thriller as the day I first cracked it open.

[Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ross Thomas knows how to craft a novel; he generates intriguing plots…idiosyncratic characters…clever dialogue creating you-are-there feeling for the reader…and sometimes curiosity-inducing titles like The Fourth Durango (or The Fools in Town Are on Our Side).

And yes, The Fourth Durango delivers all the Thomas tricks of the trade. However, for me, this book has too many characters in too many overlapping family relationships so at times I was confused by who was doing what to whom. Of course, mystery and confusion are part of Thomas’s formula for success; the reader is not supposed to figure it all out until the end. But in The Fourth Durango, the frustrating confusion overwhelms the satisfying mystery. The novel is enjoyable; it’s good fun; it’s just not worth more than three stars.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Ross Thomas novel. I picked it up because someone in my book group recommended it as in the same realm as Elmore Leonard. It's a similar style story, though it was more about political corruption than just crime, and as a result seems a little sleazier. The writing isn't as pared down as Leonard's, but Thomas has the same tendency to end a scene on a strong line from one of the characters. The humor is similar. If you like Leonard, I'd recommend trying Thomas out. I'll certainly be reading more of his work.

[David Orenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love mysteries with good guys who are not perfect, perhaps, but are truly good, and who get mixed up in nasty situations, with some nasty (and some nice) people, told in a way that's both hard-boiled and witty, you should read Ross Thomas. I read a bunch of his books in the early 1990s, and just discovered this one, and was delighted to find a Ross Thomas book that I hadn't yet read. It's a good 'un!

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another delightful criminal confection by the inimitable Ross Thomas. Mr. Thomas combines quirky characters, creative plots, snappy dialogue and lots of action to produce truly entertaining books, of which The Fourth Durango is definitely one. I'm reading them all, and I'll be sorry when I've finished. There's really no one quite like Ross Thomas, although he's in the same vein as Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen.

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was prepared to give this a 4 star rating because it starts off really well, with interesting characters and storytelling. It kept my interest most of the way through, but by the end, the plot seemed overly convoluted, and the parceled out back story revelations just seemed too much. So I’ve liked both a 4 and 2/star review and placed mine in the middle.

[Jak60 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of Ross Thomas’ books are a perfect blend of politics, espionage and crime; this one is eminently a crime story, more precisely it’s about a sting.

The cast of characters is as always very good and engaging; the plot though is kind of thin and less compelling than usual.
Mind you, an average book by Ross Thomas is still compulsively readable; yet, not one of his best.

[Skyedaisy McKee · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite

Ross Thomas was the master of double cross. Pay attention and you still won't see the next curve. I say it's my favorite but The Seersucker Whipsaw and Voodoo Ltd are in tatters on my book shelf with Elmore Leonard.

[David C Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rereading Ross Thomas. This one is not bad but a bit too wordy. Nice double cross is revealed at the end but the personal connections are a bit too far fetched.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Closer to 3.5. Really great characterization and sense of place as always but the plot sort of sputters near the end.

[Pardner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keiner aus der Reihe der Serien-Protagonisten. Logik-Löcher ohne Ende. Aber neben "Am Rande der Welt" (?) der Ross Thomas, der mir bislang am meisten Sprß gemacht hat. Watt´n Vergügen.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a continually interesting story. My first Ross Thomas book, but not my last.

[E · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dated.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, entertaining read with a unique cast of characters and a good plot.