Customer Reviews
Civil Killers Amid Battles for Control - By: Donald Mitchell, 18 Jun 2008 
Resolution is the second in what appears to be the start of a series of western novels featuring gunmen & sometime lawmen, Everett Hitch & his friend Virgil Cole. The first book is Appaloosa which you should read before Resolution. In Appaloosa you will learn a lot about these two characters that will make Resolution much more interesting & enjoyable.
The roles in Appaloosa are somewhat reversed here: Everett Hitch arrives in Resolution before Virgil Cole does, & Virgil decides to hang around to help his friend. This is another new town, but one without any law. The local mine owner, Eamon O'Mallley, & Amos Wolfson, local saloonkeeper & businessman, are on a collision course to see who can take over the other's activities. Naturallly, Wolfson needs someone to keep order in the saloon, & Everett finds that to be easy work after he kills a local trouble maker.
Matters become complicated by the interests of ranchers who want to raise their families in the area & make a little money, something they can't do with Wolfson squeezing them. Everett & Virgil have a soft heart for the ladies who rent by the hour & the families of the ranchers. Although Wolfson thinks he owns Everett & Virgil, they don't think of themselves as slaves & set out to do what seems right.
This story explores many interesting themes about what law & order are based on, what civic & personal responsibilities are, the roles of men & women, & what it means to work for someone else. For those who like action, there's enough of that to satisfy without overwhelming the literary bent of the writing.
All in alll, if you want a thinking person's western, you will have a hard time finding a more satisfying one. Although the writing is clearly defined by the genre, Parker's plot & dialog alllow Resolution to provide fresh angles for old themes. It's fun see how Mr. Parker does it.
