Sin Killer

The Berrybender Narratives #1

by Larry McMurtry

From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Larry McMurtry comes the first in a four-volume epic journey through the early American frontier, featuring the Berrybender family, English nobility adrift in the American West in the 1830s.

It is 1830, and the Berrybender family—rich, aristocratic, English, and hopelessly out of place—is on its way up the Missouri River to see the untamed West as it begins to open up. Lord and Lady Berrybender have abandoned their home in England to broaden the horizons for themselves and their three children. With irascible determination—and a great deal of outright chaos—the party experiences both the awesome majesty and brutal savagery of the unexplored land, from buffalo stampedes and natural disasters to Indian raids and encounters with frontiersmen and trappers, explorers, pioneers, and one part-time preacher known as "the Sin Killer." Sin Killer, the strong, silent Westerner, captures the heart of the strong-willed, beautiful Berrybender daughter, Tasmin. But their fast developing relationship can only bring more trouble for the Berrybender's.

Packed with breathtaking adventure, charming romance, and a sense of humor stretching clear over the horizon, Sin Killer is a truly unique view of the West that could only come from the boundless skill and imagination of Larry McMurtry.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Humor, Historical, Audiobook

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Larry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."

Reviews

[Ivie dan Glokta · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all.... BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Let me warn you upfront...

If you are the overly sensitive, blushing, color within the lines, you know - that very special type of delicate flower, then by all means move the fuck away and make sure to take your smelling salts with you. This book is definitely not for you.

I volunteer a day a week in a charity oriented used book store. The place is massive, the place is brilliant and most of all it has a lush, constant circulation of novels that come from people's loved sometimes even life long collections. You get to find those nuggets, long forgotten. The difference between the used book stores and the polished – brand spanking new – ones is simple. The books in the used book store are affordable, were talking .99 here. They are pre-loved and it shows, and they usually come with an honest recommendation, not the stupid marketing ploy bullshit. So needless to say, for one day a week, I am in heaven.

When I stumbled on the Berrybender Narratives, they came from a guy with a sharp mind and a wicked sense of humour. He said → “The series is inappropriate in the true sense of the word, being laden with innuendos, gender stereotypes and surprising amount of gore.... and it was funny as hell.”

No way I was going to pass on that. So, naturally I got it.

He was absolutely right. The narrative presents us with a rich snob of an English Lord, his daughters that have characters worthy of their fathers upbringing all stranded in the New Country with their aristocratic mentality in a very raw and unforgiving land. The clash of cultures is astounding as well as sometimes incredibly shocking, but what takes the cake here was the fact that Larry made you try and think, try and envision the actual turn of events back in the day. The book is brutal, written in an unflinchingly bold way that would undoubtedly make many squeamish. That's why I have enjoyed it so much. Civilization as we know it is in fact very young, and we as a people still rush to forget the brutal ways we used to deal with each other throughout history. It shakes us to the core, the real fact that we used to be cruel and cutthroat and we tend to dismiss anything or anyone that dares to remind us of that.

So I say, good on you Larry! I say good on you, because when I have checked and seen that this book was published only ten years ago, I was amazed by the guy's cajones. This takes guts to be open about the past in unforgiving times such as this. Needles to say it reflects in the ratings. The book is patronizing, brutal, sexist and insulting at times, everything that we as a society openly were until just a few decades ago- and still I've managed to bust a gut while reading it.

And no, my sensitive ones, this doesn't mean that I condone these types of behavior in my everyday existence.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another enjoyable epic from McMurtry. This is the first of 4 novels in the Berrybender Narratives. This novel takes place on or near the Missouri River in 1832 and provides an account of the aristocratic Berrybender family from England as they make a journey into the American West. Along the way, the eldest daughter falls for and marries a shy frontiersman, Jim Snow or the Sin Killer, much to the chagrin of her father. Many other perils happen to the family including capture of three of the women in the group by the Mandan Indians, a freezing buffalo hunt in the snow resulting in frost-bite to Lord Berrybender who had already shot off some of his toes and had three of his fingers cut off by an enraged Sioux. Also included in the group is Toussaint Charbonneau, the interpreter who, along with Sacagawea, guided the Lewis and Clark expedition ten years previously. Overall, I enjoyed this novel and look forward to reading the others in the series.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Berrybenders, a family of rich English aristocrats, decide to take a journey up the Missouri River in 1830's America. The goal is to see the Wild West of buffalo, Indians, frontiersmen and trappers, so with great anticipation, they lease a large boat, the steamer Rocky Mount, which is able to carry everything they need for comfort - food, servants, tutors, guides, clothes, weapons. However, the family expects America to conform to the usual social conventions of English society, particularly the milieu of England's country manors. None of them realize Americans have very little idea of their expectations. Most of the family sees the trip the same way as we would view a trip to Disney World. As a result, the English servants and tutors despise them, while the American guides are mystified by their behavior.

Being a free agent of one's own destiny is rather terrifying in these circumstances. The adventure quickly becomes very messy, with preventable accidents, kidnappings, deaths and rapes.

All in good fun! Honest! This novel is pure farce, similar to the popular movies made in the 1930's https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw.... (However, whatever wit the author includes is only in playing with genre conventions, not in the dialogue. The prose is straightforward, not clever.)

Educated Tasmin is the eldest daughter of Lord and Lady Berrybender. Also traveling with her are her parents and a few of her ten brothers and sisters - Bobbety, Bess and Mary. Mary, age twelve, is considered by the family to be the peculiar strange child, but all of these characters appear to be remarkably free of emotional attachments to each other.

Tasmin is desperate to separate herself from her loathsome fellow travelers, so she sneaks off the boat and falls asleep in her pirogue. She is rescued (although she is unaware that she is being rescued since she is clueless about danger of any kind, as are all of the Berrybenders) by an inarticulate dirty hairy uneducated Christian fundamentalist Indian fighter, Jim Snow. She immediately falls in love with him, despite his ignorant brutality and abuse, so she plots to get him to marry her (none of the older Berrybender children are virgins since they all begin to consort with grooms and hunters and servants early - Lord Berrybender is thought to have a possible 30 bastards in addition to his ten actual recognized children).

Tasmin is not going to allow her family of idiots to prevent her Grand Romance with primitive America (as if their self-involvement already hadn't precluded any attempt at noticing she was even missing). However, this New World is a place where there are no rules, including those of genre conventions, except to turn everything upside down...

[Julie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suspect that Mr. McMurtry had as much fun writing this novel as I did, reading it!

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone on the dust jacket said the Berrybender novels turn the western epic (Lonesome Dove) on its comedic ear. These books are farcical at times, but you can't help loving the crazy circus of characters. Every side-show freak of the Old West (real or dime novel version) is here, relishing in all their crazed glory.

But McMurtry writes affectionately about these people. They may be freaks, but they're his freaks and he loves them. You will too.

By the end of the fourth book, I found myself repeatedly amazed all over again by McMurtry's ability to so perfectly render a character. After literally thousands of pages, the choices these people make remain consistent with who they were years and years before. On this, McMurtry has a gift, an astounding perfect pitch. His characters learn and grow and mature over the years and the miles. But their souls, their hearts or temperaments or whatever remain consistent. When the books were over, I missed the Berrybenders and the incredible man called the Sin Killer.

[Mikey B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ripping good yarn! Mr.McMurtry spins a tale of the American West circa 1830’s somewhere on the Missouri River. Mr. McMurtry is a skilled story-teller with wonderful dialogue and vast settings on the prairies – an unforgiveable landscape with the approach of winter. We are given a cavalcade of diverse characters, but we never lose track of who is who.

The basic story is of the rich aristocratic Berrybender’s from England making their way along the Missouri River sight-seeing the American frontier. The main character is Tasmin (the rich aristocrat’s eldest and flamboyant daughter) who on occasion strikes out on her own, becomes infatuated with a stoic frontiersman, marries this rather primitive fellow and subsequently becomes pregnant. I did find Tasmin’s on and off again relationship with this Jim guy (aka Sin Killer) stretched my credibility - how could this upper class independent woman find happiness with this dim-wit, mealy-mouthed American. They were both independent – she intellectually and he a self-sufficient, but illiterate prairie food-gatherer.

As for a correction, there were French-Canadians guides on this well-stocked expedition who were referred to erroneously by the author as “Quebecois”. “Quebecois” is a term that came out of 1960’s Quebec. In the 1800’s these explorers would have been called “Canadiens”.

Also this is the first of four volumes – so the ending is sort of open-ended, but we are NOT left in the middle of a dangling mystery!
An entertaining story in every sense of the word!

[Derrick Jeter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Larry McMurtry reinvented the Western novel. With his debut, “Horsemen Pass By” to his Pulitzer Prize winning “Lonesome Dove,” McMurtry broke from the conventional Western made popular by Zane Gray in the early twentieth century and Louis L’Amour in the mid-twentieth century and portrayed the West—whether historical or modern—with more grit and grim.

McMurtry’s speciality is character development. And perhaps no Western character is more beloved than “Lonesome Dove’s” Augustus McCree. McMurtry knows how to capture the essence and quirkiness of a character. None do it better in any genre. McMurtry doesn’t disappoint in painting the pen portrait of his heroin, Tasmin, in “Sin Killer,” the first his Berrybender Narratives—a tetralogy, or series of four volumes following the lives and adventures of the noble English Berrybender family as they explore the American West. Traveling the Missouri River, Tasmin and the various Berrybenders encounter a score of troubles from Indians, the weather, and their own folly.

“Sin Killers” is at once a quick and accessible read with the feel of an epic novel. It is the epic nature of the four volume series that seems to give this first novel an overwritten quality. McMurtry knew financial success from the very beginning of his career. “Horsemen Pass By” sold (and continues to sell) hundreds of thousands of copies and was made into a major movie staring Paul Newman and Patricia O’Neil, “Hud.” And he won critical acclaim with “Lonesome Dove,” which was made into major mini-series for television. From such heights McMurtry has never descended. But it might be such heights that gives “Sin Killer” such a lazy feel to the writing. McMurtry doesn’t have the reputation of trying to tackle big ideas or trying to push the cultural boundaries in his novels, but the ideas in “Sin Killer,” written by a more mature McMurtry, don’t live up to the earlier works of “Horsemen Pass By” or “Lonesome Dove.”

“Sin Killer” is a good summer beach read, but there’s not much sin to kill within its pages, and I think that’s a sin . . . committed by one of the finest American writers of our generation.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another one I couldn’t finish. I think McMurtry is off and on. Some I love (Lonesome Dove, Last Picture Show) and some I detest (Comanche Moon). What was this—a comedy, drama? Most characters were buffoons; none were interesting enough to follow. I’m not wasting any more time on this review and would rather stick pins in my eyes than read three more (3!!!) incarnations.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sin Killer, by Larry McMurtry, is the first of four novels featuring the large and dysfunctional Berrybender family. Lord and Lady Berrybender are obscenely rich English aristocrats who are whimsically navigating north on the Missouri River in an attempt to reach Wyoming and Yellowstone before the Missouri freezes over. Though travel is by steamboat, the Rocky Mount, readers may be forgiven for feeling they are on a rollercoaster facing imminent disaster with every dip and rise.

For the trip, Lord Berrybender has assembled the most creative mix of oddball characters which include: six of the fourteen Berrybender children; a gun bearer and a gunsmith; two tutors; a cook, a kitchen maid, and a laundress; a carriage maker and a hunter and his son; a naturalist, a cellist, a painter, and a stable boy to look after the horses stabled below decks. There is naturally a steamer captain, and any number of dogs-body Frenchmen.

With such an assembly, McMurtry has no shortage of opportunity for mishaps and misunderstandings, some of them semi-serious, but most of them hilarious to the point of slapstick comedy. Another source of humor is the stark contrast between members of the group who are seasoned frontiersmen and women skilled in survival skills in a vast and unforgiving land, and the English visitors, whose utter lack of knowledge is dwarfed only by the lack of awareness of their ignorance.

There are many sexual liaisons going on with lots of individual agendas desired from such matings. Chief among the mischief-makers are the lord and lady themselves! People also seem to accidentally or deliberately find themselves on and off the steamboat as it makes its way upriver. Lord Berrybender is about as out of place as a penguin among peacocks, and is single-minded about one thing only—shooting buffalo, which he does with obscene disregard beyond any sporting etiquette. His carelessness with guns results in several hilarious accidental discharges of weapons, one of which brings brutal reality to the expression “shooting oneself in the foot!”

Emerging from this motley crew is Tasmin, eldest Berrybender daughter, who is something of a romantic, but one that has a stubborn streak and is unafraid of speaking her mind. After whimsically departing the steamboat, Tasmin encounters the taciturn Jim Snow, also known as The Raven Brave and the Sin Killer of the book’s title. Tasmin wastes no time in falling in love with Jim, even though he is stunned by how much she can talk and ask questions, which means Jim wastes no time in returning her to the steamboat.

Also present on board and on land are various Indians and Indian tribes, who bring even more comedy to the proceedings. Even when women from the steamboat party find themselves captives of Indians and are brutally maltreated, it is difficult for readers not to consume the macabre humor with a tolerant chuckle.

One gets the impression that McMurtry had a lot of fun writing these Berrybender chronicles, and despite all the slapstick comedy and dark humor, one cannot help being impressed with the author’s signature intimate knowledge of the American West in the 1830s—its culture, climate, native Americans, and also the interloping white variety. This is a fast, enjoyable read and I will doubtless read the remaining three books in the series…but I might allow myself many other books in between.

[Emma Troyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is only my loyalty to Larry McMurtry that prevents me from giving this only one star. Or none at all. Seriously, really, really weird.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Lonesome Dove and Terms of Endearment. Loved. But, while I thought Sin Killer was at times funny, in the beginning, it had a certain shallowness to it that made me watch the characters, instead of living their lives.

McMurtry, as a rule, does not care about 'show don't tell', he steadfast labels emotions instead of allowing the reader to live through them by showing them. When the cast is not this big (and generally unlikeable) his way of writing still works because of McMurtry's other qualities.
Sin Killer lacked this.

Women all wantonly wanted to have sex in this book. All women. Unless they were being (gang) raped by Indians. But they didn't have an emotional reaction to the latter that the reader could see, so that the rape did not have any impact on reader or character than dinner. One of the characters afterwards decides to become a nun. That's the response to it all. Can it get anymore card board?
Being hit by a woman later on does provoke a violent reaction in one of the raped women. Being hit after all is worse than being raped...

It's hard to suspend disbelieve in the women in this book. It's very hard not to notice this uninformed, unemphatic, lustful male point of view. As the male characters are not particularly sympathetic too, there's no one to care for in the book.

[Buz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was thinking about the Lonesome Dove series when I picked up Sin Killer (the first book in Larry McMurtry’s Berrybender series), and I did find a strong “historical western” foundation, with plenty of action involving the frontier, wild Indians, buffalo, violent deaths, accidents, kidnappings, etc. But I also found a high level of humor and farce. As winter approaches, the somewhat ridiculous and highly entertaining Berrybender family (of England) strives to travel up the Missouri River in a very large steamboat. In other words, rich and spoiled English nobility (with all of their various servants) thrown into the wild and dangerous American frontier. Because I was expecting something else, I was a little put off by the silly Berrybenders at first, but as I said, there is a lot of historical accuracy (and there are many serious situations) to be found in this very funny book, and now that I have reached the end of it, I must admit to having a morbid fascination with this train-wreck of a family. I’ve been sucked in, so here I go to book #2…

[Joel Kimmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit silly. There are quite a lot of characters but it isn't overwhelming try to remember who everyone is or what their relations are to each other. This wasn't McMurtry at his best and I didn't find any of it to be too thoughtful. It's just a goofy journey up the river on a big boat and some upper crust people who aren't used to the Wild West are thrust into its wilderness, or at least on the safe river, until they venture to land out of boredom.
I might read the others in this series, but I'm not dying to read them.

[Thurston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stuck with this book, despite my initial skepticism after the first few pages.
It was a new genre of book for me, so it felt obligated to pursue it.

I am not a fan of a ton a characters to learn (hence the cast of characters listing in the beginning which i needed to refer to)

Superstition and simplistic, carnal relationships.....

Fast read and will attempt the next in the series.

[Matthew Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times hilarious, at others brutal, as well as touching, this is in many ways reminiscent of and yet very different from Lonesome Dove (and much shorter). McMurtry's character work is once again excellent and compelling. I'm excited to continue the series. Bonus- the audiobook narrated by Alfred Molina is great

[Riley Eldredge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is insane, and every character is a full dramatic version of their stereotype so it may be offensive…but I breezed through it, McMurtry is an insane writer who can really whip up a western story

[Brett Strausser · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pages breeze by in this dramatic and humorous tale of the west. The setting in the 1830's is an interesting choice and appreciated by this reader. The Sin Killer character is a bit of a degenerate version of Natty Bumpo, but forgivable.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I can't wait for the second one. Fortunately, I was in a used bookstore not long ago and found the first three volumes in pristine, unread condition for very cheap. I wish the fourth had been with them to complete the set, but am happy with what I have. The books feel so good in your hands, are an easy to read font, and are printed on luxurious paper. My dad taught me to always appreciate books and pages printed on fine quality paper. I love stories of the American West, especially stories with vivid descriptions of the country, wildlife, people etc. One thing McMurtry is good at is vivid descriptions. In this book those descriptions may be of buffalo afterbirth, tortured captives or sweaty sex - but, he manages a fair amount of description of the land, people, weather and animals too. The book is not up to the political correctness standards of the 21st century, as many reviews point out and belabor. However, it is set in 1832 and nothing is gained by pretending those times weren't rough and filled with slurs and demeaning language. If you eliminate all that then the reader doesn't get to experience all the things we are supposedly "better than" now and why. For example, at first I felt there was gratuitous violence against animals. But then I realized that was exactly how privileged European settlers treated the native animals of America. The book is fiction, but the characters are representative of the larger universe of settlers and explorers at that time. After all, we of European decent eventually killed almost all of the millions of buffalo, so for a British Lord to shoot 40 at one time for "sport" and leave them to rot is pretty representative of how things really were then. Overall, I was able to take the actions of the characters as I believe the author intended, appreciate the ample humor throughout the book (most of it at the main characters' expense), and thoroughly enjoy this wild romp up the river and across the plains.

PS: It is not fair to compare this series to Lonesome Dove. That was about Texas Rangers, this is about English aristocrats - they are two different series set in different places (this one literally in the rivers of the West). If you want to read only about Rangers and mostly men go re-read Dove - this one has women and girls in the main characters, sorry. Also, for you who couldn't keep the characters straight perhaps you overlooked the character index so thoughtfully provided in the front. If you want a book with few characters I recommend 2001: A space oddity, it only has an astronaut dude and a computer named Hal.

[Kim Becker (MIDDLE of the Book MARCH) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ever since "Lonesome Dove" I've wanted to read something else by Larry McMurtry. This was no comparison to LD but was still enjoyable. The book is very funny, bawdy, and filled with superficial, whiny, entitled, messed-up characters who made me laugh and sigh with frustration.

The Berrybenders are a wealthy English family coming to the American prairie to seek adventure...a new experience...a new outlook...who knows. They are so dysfunctional and simpering, with Lord Berrybender leading the jewel-encrusted way. On the journey he doesn't only bring his wife and several of his almost 2 dozen children, but his mistress, entertainers, and multiple servants. His oldest daughter (her paternity in question) is so sick of her gratuitously rude and boorish family that she runs off and finds a frontiersman who she promptly marries. In her rush, we see that she is just as entitled and simpering as her family, if not more enlightened.

McMurtry develops the characters very well, sets his story in the Western plains settings we are familiar with in his novels, and introduces the first of a quartet of Berrybender narratives. I wouldn't call it his best work, or a 5 star read but it was enjoyable and I ordered the second installment for the future.

Oh...and a great title! Revelation of its meaning early in the book.

[Michael Romeo Talks Books · Rating 1 out of 5]

My latest encounter with a disappointing read is Larry McMurtry’s Sin Killer. I like McMurtry. I am an avid fan of Lonesome Dove and rank it high on my list of personal favorites. I’ve read some of his earlier works including The Last Picture Show which swept me into its soap opera like drama. But Sin Killer, the first of a four book series called The Berrybender Chronicles, left me cold. The plot was clever enough; a spoiled and eccentric English aristocratic family decides to tour the American West which is just opening up. They get much more than they were prepared for. Along the way the eldest daughter meets and falls in love with Raven Brave aka Sin Killer, a self-taught evangelist-hunter-tracker-guide who received the call of God when struck by lightning. The problem with the story is there is no one to like. All the characters are either boring or despicable. I found halfway through that I no longer cared what happened to these people. There is little chance I will continue onto the remainder of the series. I am also wondering what I will encounter with the other unread McMurtry books on my shelf.

[Steve Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A traveling circus of a clueless aristocratic English family and support staff of dozens heads down the Ohio River and up the Missouri in the 1830s to explore the relatively untamed west. This story, at times humorous and at times gruesome, reveals how not travel, then or now. People with no idea of what they are doing step off cliffs and trust that all will be well.

The patriarch is so uninterested in anything not related to his pursuits of hunting, drinking, fornicating and cards, that after the first handful of kids, he can't be bothered to come up with names, so the rest simply get numbers, up through Sister 10 as they set out. As the trip progresses, he begins to come apart, literally. All around him his family and retainers become involved in schemes and affairs and hardships and comedy and tragedy.

Being a fan of anything Lewis and Clark/Westward Expansion, this was a fun new perspective that I enjoyed. Fast and fun read with episode 2 already on the way.

Thanks to JCPLibrary for loaning a free copy.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love McMurtry. Like his other westerns, this one has everything you could possibly want in another fantastically entertaining story by him: humor, action, sex, great characters. You name it. Moral values? Ehhhhhhhhh . . . I don't know about that one. But I do know that great westerns like great war stories strip people down to their bare bones. And they behave like you would expect them to behave, like animals. An occasional animal will know how to do the right thing.

[Jeanne Gehret · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book on tape, and it kept putting me to sleep--not a good thing when you're driving! Altogether, I found the characters disagreeable and had a hard time caring about them. I couldn't wait until we arrived at our destination and I didn't have to listen to it anymore. (My husband/travel companion found it mildly interesting.)

[WadeofEarth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll have to check out some more of this series. The setting intrigued me (rich Englishman brings his family to frontier America = recipe for disaster) and the characters and situations all held my interest, but it never really sucked me in. I do see plenty of potential, so I'll be back!

[Tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book made me wish I was illiterate. I would prefer to watch cartoons.

[Mike Futcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd and hectic piece – a sort of vaudeville Western. Sin Killer, at first, seems like a mistake; the premise of a family of aristocratic Brits (the wackily-named Berrybenders) raising hell on the American frontier in the year of our Lord 1832 is a joke that threatens to tire before it's even begun. The writing style is more affected than author Larry McMurtry's usual moreish prose (though the storytelling ability is still there), and there is an unremitting onslaught of boorish and entitled behaviour from the aristos, along with bursts of bawdy humour and vomit and erections. It can be disconcerting to switch from this sort of content to the book's incidents of rape, violence and elemental hardship. And any attempt by the reader to discern a literary motive to McMurtry's novel – namely the contrast between Old World and New, settled and unsettled (pg. 36) – quickly leads them to throw up their hands. The Berrybenders left England on a "whim" (pg. 24); and "what the passengers meant to do in such wild country was a puzzle" (pg. 94).

Fortunately, once you do throw up your hands in defeat the book becomes a bit more palatable. McMurtry knows his genre, and despite the outlandish goings-on, his West always comes across as authentic. Those boorish and scatter-brained characters begin to develop a bit – it helps that a goodly few get killed off – and the book begins to settle. Those hectic "alarums" which are "merely the stuff of day-to-day life, when the Berrybenders are assembled" (pg. 294) become less grating, and the parameters of the story begin to become more defined. A shame, then, that it's at this point the book ends without much sense of occasion: Sin Killer is most definitely Part One of an ongoing story than a book that can stand on its own two feet. Once you accept this isn't going to be your typical Western – not even your typical McMurtry Western – its own charm emerges, even if it remains a rather shallow charm. Some of the characters may even grow on you, which when combined with the general ease and breeziness of the read, makes picking up the second book a prospect.

[Micah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started listening to Lonesome Dove, quickly fell in love with both the premise and McMurtry's prose and dialogue, and then accidentally pocket-returned the digital copy I had downloaded from the library. There are 46 holds on 6 copies of this novel and I already waited 3 months to start it. My boss offered to buy a copy for me in my lamenting, but instead I jumped into Sin Killer to drown my sorrows in something similar.

In the year of Our Lord 1832, Lord Berrybender decided to bring a handful of his 14 children and a number of his servants out of North Hampton and across the pond to take a slow riverboat tour up the Missouri, in hopes of shooting a few buffalo and maybe a white bear or two. What ensues is pure pandemonium of every sort in a domestic nuthouse where there is as much familial sentiment as the Addams mansion. Indian attacks, freak storms, fights among the Polish and German and French and Italian and Spanish and Danish servants, and every sort of violent accident threaten to destroy every member of the household. The only person who might make a difference in their favor has little enough reason to take any notice. The Sin Killer.

Raised by Natives and a widely-feared Indian fighter and wilderness survivalist, young Jim Snow is known as The Raven Brave for his fighting and as Sin Killer because of his strangely rudimentary and aggressively enforced brand of Christian faith. When Lord Berrybender's eldest daughter Tasmin loses herself in the prairy, it is Jim Snow who happens upon her and brings her through safely. As the journey goes from bad to worse and winter sets in, it is a proximity to Jim Snow that seems to dictate one's safety and likelihood of survival.

Fun, dirty frontier reading full of irreverent dark humor and cowboys and indians.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow to get going, but then I was. hooked. It is about the old West. A rich man from England takes a trip in America w/ all his entourage with him, including several children. One is very adventurous, and takes off in a boat, falls asleep and lost, but a young man (hunter, who grew up w/ the Ute and was bought by a preacher), takes her back to her boat. He is a young man of few words, who does not behave like most men she has known, and can't seem to get him out of her mind... Fast paced and many surprises as the dangers of the area take their toll. But, at the end I find out it is one of a series, and this is only part one!

[Davy Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am on the fence about ditching this one to make space. I need to prove I am not a hoarder.

I live down in Houston and have threatened several times to take the long trip to LM's book store in far off Archer City. Too late now, i heard the Magnolia/Waco HGTV guy Chip Gaines bought it. Doubt i can afford his prices ... probably not even when Larry had it. I like library sales, Half Price Books clearance etc...

James McMurtry, his son has at least 2 good songs, We Cant Make it Here and Choctaw Bingo.

I loved Lonesome Dove on TV but dont read a whole lot of fiction and while i own several McMurtry books i cant seem to pull the trigger.

I've read a few Cormac McCarthy novels and some Louis L'Amour, so I'm not that bad of a person.

[Michael Sigler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not exactly what I was expecting from a Larry McMurtry book, but not at all unwelcomed. I think 'Sin Killer' is much better than most reviewers say it is and, though slow in the first quarter, is a well-written and engaging novel.