Robert B. Parker's Bull River

Knott continues the adventures of Marshal Virgil Cole and Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch in this latest addition to Robert B. Parker's series (after Ironhorse). Virgil and Everett capture the killer and gang leader Captain Alejandro Miguel Vasquez and bring him to San Cristobal. But before they can close this case, they are already involved in another. The Comstock Bank, they learn, has been robbed by its president, and all is not as it seems as Virgil and Everett uncover the convoluted conspiracy behind the bank's robbery. Unfortunately, for a thriller set in America's old West, this novel lacks action. Each of the short chapters in the first two-thirds involves tedious amounts of interrogation of the many throwaway characters Virgil and Everett sift through in their attempt to uncover the true robber. Furthermore, the novel is puzzlingly written from Everett's perspective. Virgil is the more commanding hero in the story, and Everett's perspective is so rarely and ineffectually used it becomes a superfluous storytelling contrivance. (Jan.)