The Fourth Durango ebook

by Ross Thomas

The Fourth Durango is not your ordinary Durango. It takes a Ross Thomas to stir these characters into a witty and ingenious mix readers will not be able to -and certainly would not want to-resist.

The Fourth Durango is not your ordinary Durango. It's not in Spain, or Mexico, and it's not a ski town in the Colorado Rockies, although Durangos do exist in all of those places. It’s not in Spain, or Mexico, and it’s not a ski town in the Colorado Rockies, although Durangos do exist in all of those places.

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

Ross Thomas, Sarah Paretsky. D. Huckins’s house without knocking at 12:46 . to find Jack Adair on the cream couch with a bottle of beer and the mayor in her chocolate-brown leather chair. to find Jack Adair on the cream couch with a bottle of beer and the mayor in her chocolate-brown leather chair ame in but Sid Fork preempted her with: Somebody shot Norm Trice dead about an hour ago and left us a message. Huckins nodded, as if at some mildly interesting news, and rose slowly, turning away from the three men. She walked over to one of her Monet prints and seemed to examine it carefully.

Ross Thomas (February 19, 1926 in Oklahoma City – December 18, 1995 in Santa Monica, California) 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. a b c Myrna Oliver (19 December 1995). Ross Thomas; Award-Winning Mystery Writer". Retrieved 16 August 2011. William Heffernan (preface) in Ross Thomas (2005). New York: Thomas Dunne Books.

Another pearl of the Ross Thomas oeuvre, two protagonists wish to seek refuge in Durango, a town that makes its income with a very curious illegal enterprise

Another pearl of the Ross Thomas oeuvre, two protagonists wish to seek refuge in Durango, a town that makes its income with a very curious illegal enterprise. Again Thomas used his knowledge of political chicanery to imbue his characters (a disbarred lawyer, a crooked chief of police, a convicted state judge) with real life hubris.

The Fourth Durango book. 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. The Fourth Durango is not your ordinary Durango . Books related to The Fourth Durango.

item 2 The Fourth Durango by Thomas, Ross Paperback Book The Cheap Fast Free Post . Fourth Durango is an isolated beach town in California. To make money, the beautiful mayor, .

item 2 The Fourth Durango by Thomas, Ross Paperback Book The Cheap Fast Free Post -The Fourth Durango by Thomas, Ross Paperback Book The Cheap Fast Free Post. item 6 The Fourth Durango-Ross Thomas -The Fourth Durango-Ross Thomas. Then a priest arrives in town - and the killings start.

Sharpbringer

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 glorious fun all the way.

Qusserel

When I finish Voodoo Ltd., I will have read Thomas' entire oeuvre, and it will be like a little death for me. I discovered him quite by accident, when reading a fairly recent New Yorker piece of the "guilty" pleasures of reading genre novels (pleasures which the author deemed should not be guilty, because so many of the writers are so damned good--Ross Thomas among them). I'd never heard of Thomas, but in dire need of something good to read, began, with The Mordida Man. So good, but so complex a plot that I wanted to diagram it.

Reading Ross Thomas is like eating a quart of Haagen Dazs directly out of the carton, preferably while remaining standing. IMHO, he is simply the best "thriller" writer of his generation, and perhaps many generations. More like Graham Greene-esque "entertainments", Thomas' books are, in a word, delicious. Complex plots (some overly complex and implausible) aside, his writing his simply superb. He's so good, I find myself smiling continually, as I take delight in his images, his descriptions, and his sly and dry wit. Try one. Any one. Among my favorites: The Fourth Durango, Missionary Stew, Chinaman's Chance, The Fools in Town are on Our Side, Seersucker Whipsaw, The Brass Go-Between, and Twilight at Mac's Place (very long and scrumptious, though with an ending I actually did not understand. I may have to read it again.) Go for it; you can't go wrong.

Jay

THE FOURTH DURANGO isn't so much a plot-driven crime thriller: it feels more like a half-dozen clever characters playing the same game of chess (whether they know it or not).

The book begins with a disgraced judge leaving prison as well as a trail of bodies behind as he and his son-in-law/disbarred attorney flee to the quiet town of Durango, California. The sexy, savvy mayor and her lover/Chief of Police make a shady deal to hide them...but the killers who want the judge dead already appear to be in the town limits.

I've never read anything else by Ross Thomas but I did like his wit and economy. You really feel like you're in the hands of someone who knows where he's going and the best way to get there.

Flash_back

I thought he had a very interesting and different style of telling a suspense story. I enjoyed every minute of it and almost didn't want to finish the book.

SlingFire

Ross Thomas is as good as it gets. They ask for more words to complete the review. As good as it gets.

Bludsong

If you have never read Ross Thomas, you have missed the best.

Levion

There's a Durango in Spain, another one in Mexico and a third in Colorado. The fourth Durango, the one which gives the book its title, is located in California.

Durango, CA is a small isolated town with no industry, not even tourism. But the chief of police and the female mayor have found a way to fill the municipal coffers. For the right price, they will provide sanctuary or at least a hideout for anyone whose bodily safety has been threatened.
Two men, Kelly Vines, a disbarred lawyer, and the older Jack Adair, a disgraced judge, decide to avail themselves of Durango's unique brand of hospitality.

The Fourth Durango is a great example of Ross Thomas at his most outrageous. Filled with humor that is simultaneously dark, cynical, understated and shock inducing, this novel provides solid entertainment from beginning to end.

As do most Ross Thomas novels, The Fourth Durango has plenty of quirky, memorable characters, great dialogue and several instances of sudden violence presented in matter-of-fact fashion. A real treat for Ross Thomas fans.