Larry McMurtry's Sin Killer is a wildly entertaining ride through the untamed Great Plains. The first installment of a proposed tetralogy, The Berrybender Narratives, Sin Killer follows the adventures of the Berrybenders, a large, noble English family traveling the Missouri River in 1832. This deeply self-absorbed and spoiled family leaves England for the unknown of the American West, based solely on a "whim" and Lord Berrybender's desire to "shoot different animals from those he shot at home." The novel joins the family as they make their way toward Yellowstone aboard a luxury steamer, accompanied by a motley assemblage of servants, guides, and natives. Along the way, this "floating Europe" and its bickering, stubborn passengers encounter constant adversity, including warring natives, hellacious weather, accidental deaths, and kidnappings.

Thanks largely to Sin Killer's gallery of colorful personalities, McMurtry keeps most of the action firmly in the realm of fish-out-of-water farce. One such character is the independent and opinionated eldest daughter Tasmin, who, frustrated by her family's conventions, escapes the steamer, whereupon she meets and falls in love with Jim Snow, a.k.a. Sin Killer. Snow, an Indian killer raised by natives, is a stoical, God-fearing man who won't tolerate blasphemy. With prose that flows as naturally as the Missouri, McMurtry weaves together a large cast and vast setting into a thoroughly exciting, hilarious adventure novel. Though Sin Killer focuses on a love story and contains plenty of realistic violence, McMurtry's efficient voice and matter-of-fact perspective leaves little room for tragedy or sentimentality, instead emphasizing high comedy. This is wonderful storytelling from a narrator in perfect agreement with his subject. Sin Killer should please McMurtry's many fans, who now have much to look forward to. --Ross Doll


From Publishers Weekly
Part western, part satire of the English class system contrasted with rugged frontier society, the first volume of this proposed tetralogy gets off to a shaky start as McMurtry introduces the randy, bumbling Berrybender clan, a rich but inept aristocratic British family that journeys up the Missouri River to try to capitalize on the land boom of the 1830s. The early romantic subplot shows promise when beautiful but flighty Lady Tasmin Berrybender, temporarily separated from her group, is rescued by Jim Snow, a quiet, religious trapper known as the Sin Killer, both for his piety (I'm hard on sin ) and for his fierce fighting skills. Snow returns Tasmin to the family vessel, and his sudden marriage proposal delights Tasmin, until she discovers that he already has two Indian wives. The other narrative lines aren't nearly as entertaining, as McMurtry veers back and forth between outlining the war between various rival Indian tribes and trying to generate comic sparks with the Berrybenders' ongoing series of pratfalls. He has some brief success in the later chapters when Tasmin defies her pompous father, Lord Berrybender, as he tries to undo the marriage to keep the family bloodline pure, and Jim Snow remains an intriguing figure throughout. But much of the light comedy lands with a thud, and the introduction of a raft of mostly superfluous characters takes the edge off McMurtry's prose and makes the Berrybenders seem silly and inane rather than charming. McMurtry does plant a few promising plot seeds for the ensuing books, but it will take a more focused and genuinely humorous effort the next time out to make this concept work. While the narrative fails to satisfy as a true western, readers should enjoy McMurtry's portrait of the terrain bordering the Missouri River. Future volumes will be set on or beside three other rivers, the Yellowstone, the Rio Grande and the Brazos. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Lord Albany Berrybender, the richest aristocrat in England, is steaming up the Missouri River in 1832 on a rented paddle wheeler. This eccentric is accompanied by his wife, his mistress, six of his 14 legitimate children, a multicultural retinue of servants and retainers (including noted Western painter George Catlin), a dozen French-speaking guides, and three Indian chiefs. These polyglot travelers experience a blend of adventures and mishaps. Strong-willed and beautiful Tasmin, the lord's eldest daughter, marries an unkempt but handsome frontiersman, Indian fighter, and part-time preacher known as the "Sin Killer." Two of the women are kidnapped by Indians, and violent or accidental deaths strike six of the travelers, including Lady Berrybender, who suffers a fatal fall while drunk. Unfortunately, this first novel in a new historical tetralogy is no Lonesome Dove. A melodramatic plot, a plethora of thinly developed characters, and a pattern of unconvincing dialog make for an unsatisfactory read. Recommended only in public libraries where McMurtry retains a faithful readership. Joseph M. Eagan, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., BaltimoreCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
This offbeat Western from the author of LONESOME DOVE follows the aristocratic Berrybender family on a dangerous trip up the Missouri River in 1830 to hunt buffalo. Members of the party face Indian attacks, frostbite and natural calamity, but the central story concerns daughter Tasmin's fast romance and marriage to preacher and Indian fighter Jim Snow, the title's "Sin Killer." Alfred Molina reads the bawdy, sometimes bloody, story with a zest that conveys both drama and human comedy. A passage about a servant's emergence from his cold-weather shelter inside a dying buffalo is both funny and fascinating. Some of his voices, particularly that of the stubborn Lord Berrybender, seem caricatured, but all are distinctive. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
The Great Western Novel is alive and well, thanks in no small part to McMurtry, who here embarks on the first of four tales of the Berrybender family. It's 1832, and Lord and Lady Berrybender--wealthy Brits incongruously venturing into the Wild West--make their way up the Missouri River (the Yellowstone, the Rio Grande, and the Brazos will be the settings for the next three adventures, each making up one year of travel). Among those in the sizable entourage are 6 of the 14 Berrybender children, including Tasmin, a gutsy, industrious young woman who generally takes charge of the hapless group--no small task, as Lord and Lady Berrybender live by whim and are always "the least likely to accept the severities of logic." But Tasmin's independence brings strife, too, especially when she hooks up with frontiersman Jim Snow, an Indian fighter and wanna-be preacher. They call him the Sin Killer, more for his moralistic exploits than his violent tendencies, but nonetheless he is an enigma to the Berrybenders. With characteristic wit and charisma, and without overt romanticism, McMurtry returns us to the American frontier with a cast of characters nearly as varied and compelling as the Lonesome Dove ensemble. Fans of that Pulitzer Prize-winning and miniseries-inspiring novel will be sure to stand in line for this one. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
The Washington Post A sprawling parody of the frontier encounter....Sin Killer is a zany, episodic ride. With gusto and nonstop ingenuity, McMurtry moves his cast of characters and caricatures steadily upstream.

Chicago Tribune A story as big as the West itself.

The New York Times Irresistible.


Review
The New York Times Irresistible.


Review
The New York Times Irresistible.


Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry comes the first leg of an epic journey through the early American frontier, introducing a pioneer family the likes of which you will never forget. 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. 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." 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.


About the Author
Larry Mcmurtry, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and many other awards, is the author of more than twenty-four novels, two collections of essays, three memoirs, and more than thirty screenplays, and is the editor of an anthology of modern Western fiction. His reputation as a critically acclaimed and bestselling author is unequaled.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One In the darkness beyond the great Missouri's shore... In the darkness beyond the great Missouri's shore at last lay the West, toward which Tasmin and her family, the numerous Berrybenders, had so long been tending. The Kaw, an unimpressive stream, had been passed that afternoon -- Tasmin, Bobbety, Bess, and Mary had come ashore in the pirogue to see the prairies that were said to stretch west for a thousand miles; but in fact they could hardly see anything, having arrived just at dusk. The stars were coming out -- bright, high stars that didn't light the emptiness much, as a full moon might have done. Bess, called Buffum by the family, insisted that she had heard a buffalo cough, while Bobbety claimed to have seen a great fish leap at dusk, some great fish of the Missouri. The three older Berrybenders tramped for a time along the muddy shore, trailed, as usual, by the sinister and uncompromising Mary, aged twelve, whom none of them had invited on the tour. In the last light they all stared at the gray grass and the brown slosh of water; but the great fish of the Missouri did not leap again. Disappointed, the agile Bobbety at once caught a slimy green frog, which he foolishly tried to force down Mary's dress, the predictable result of his actions being that the frog squirmed away while Mary, never one to be trifled with, bit Bobbety's forefinger to the bone, causing him to blubber loudly, to Buffum's great annoyance and Tasmin's quiet contempt. Though Bobbety attempted to give his sister a sharp slap, Mary, like the frog, squirmed away and, for a time, was seen no more. "It is said that there are no schools anywhere in the American West, in this year of our Lord 1832," Bess declaimed, in her characteristically pompous way. The three of them were attempting to row the pirogue back to the big boat, but in fact their small craft was solidly grounded on the Missouri mud. Bobbety, muttering about lockjaw and gangrene, dropped the only paddle, which floated away. "Do get it, Tasmin...I'm bleeding...I fear the piranhas will inevitably attack," Bobbety whined; his knowledge of natural history was of the slightest. Tasmin might readily have given him a succinct lecture on the normally benign nature of the piranha, in any case a fish of the Amazon, not the Missouri, but she decided to postpone the lecture and catch the paddle, a thing soon accomplished, the Missouri being distressingly shallow at that point of its long drainage. Tasmin got wet only to her knees. In her large family, the ancient, multifarious Berrybenders, Tasmin was invariably the one who recovered paddles, righted boats, posted letters, bound up wounds, corrected lessons, dried tears, cuffed the tardy, reproved the wicked, and lectured the ignorant, study having been her passion from her earliest days. Far out in the center of the broad stream, the steamer Rocky Mount seemed to be as immovable as their humble pirogue -- mired, perhaps, like themselves, in the clinging Missouri mud. Sounds of the evening's carouse were just then wafting across the waves. Copyright © 2002 by Larry McMurtry

FROM OUR EDITORS

Set in the early 19th century, this historical novel begins a tetralogy that constitutes one of the most ambitious re-creations of the American West. McMurtry, regarded as the master of this genre, intertwines real frontier events and people with fictional characters. The improbable yet doubly fetching romance between a well-mannered Englishwoman and the archetypal western gunman Jim "Sin Killer" Snow helps drive the story.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"It is 1830, and the Berrybender family, rich, aristocratic, English, and fiercely out of place, is on its way up the Missouri River to see the American West as it begins to open up." Accompanied by a large and varied collection of retainers, Lord and Lady Berrybender have abandoned their palatial home in England to explore the frontier and to broaden the horizons of their children, who include Tasmin, a budding young woman of grit, beauty, and determination, her vivacious and difficult sister, and her brother.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times

Irresistible.

Chicago Tribune

A story as big as the West itself.

Washington Post

A sprawling parody of the frontier encounter....Sin Killer is a zany, episodic ride. With gusto and nonstop ingenuity, McMurtry moves his cast of characters and caricatures steadily upstream.

Book Magazine

Few contemporary American novelists have enjoyed more success with book series than Larry McMurtry. From Sonny, Jacy and Duane in The Last Picture Show to Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call in Lonesome Dove, the end of a novel rarely signals the end of the story. McMurtry often returns to his memorable characters, sometimes decades after the fact. McMurtry's latest offering, Sin Killer, launches an exciting new series, a tetralogy he has dubbed "The Berrybender Narratives," in which we follow a wealthy, bumbling British family—not to mention their various servants and pets—as they make their way through the American frontier. Each book will proceed along a different river, the Missouri in Sin Killer to be followed by the Yellowstone before winding through the Rio Grande and the Brazos. Plainly, such narrative scope requires compelling characters to sustain interest over four books, and McMurtry has conjured two of his most memorable in Tasmin Berrybender and Jim Snow, a young preacher and Indian fighter (there are no politically correct "Native Americans" in this novel). Tasmin is the oldest of fourteen children, only four of whom have names (the remainder are merely numbered—Brother Seven, Sister Ten—since Lord and Lady Berrybender are far more interested in copulation than parenting). Considering herself "the one competent Berrybender," Tasmin appears to be the only one in the family with the sense to find her place in this new world. Tasmin seems like a cross between Jane Austen's Emma and one of McMurtry's typically strong-willed females: spirited, saucy and smart, though not quite smart enough to recognizethe limits of her experience. She realizes that America means freedom for her, whereas life in England promised nothing better than subjecting herself to a loveless marriage in exchange for a nobleman's dowry. Her awakening inspires a soaring lyricism from McMurtry: "Tasmin opened her eyes to a dawn of such brilliance that it seemed the planet itself was being reborn," he writes of her first night spent alone on American soil, away from the "floating Europe" of the steamboat that her parents have commissioned for the long trip west. "When the great molten sun swelled up from the horizon and cast its first light over the vastness of the prairies, Tasmin felt a joy stronger and more pure than any she had yet known." Amid this seeming Eden, Eve soon encounters her Adam, as Tasmin and Jim Snow surprise each other bathing in the Missouri. Tasmin learns that Snow was left orphaned in an Indian attack, then raised by a different tribe, who later traded him to a morally ambiguous preacher, who was killed by a lightning bolt that Snow considered God's punishment. The lightning instilled "the Word" in the religiously fundamentalist Snow, who has become feared among some Indian adversaries as "Sin Killer." Sin was "a subject Tasmin had never given even a moment's thought to, though growing up in a family of flagrant sinners had given her plenty of opportunity to observe the phenomenon at first hand." Inevitably, Tasmin and Jim find themselves perplexed, frustrated and fascinated by each other, while the people around them seem increasingly cartoonish in their bawdy, drunken, occasionally lethal escapades. This is one of those McMurtry novels in which losing an appendage or even a life can pass for comic relief. McMurtry fans might remember that his previous novel, 2000's Boone's Lick, was also announced as the first in a series, one that the author has apparently put aside in favor of this. Whereas the epic Lonesome Dove felt finished unto itself, though it subsequently spawned a prequel and a series of sequels, Sin Killer reads like the first episode of a story to be continued. Most of its characters (introduced with a two-page list) are barely more than sketches during the course of these 300 pages, while the style suggests a writer who has yet to find his tone. (Though McMurtry frequently opts for an archaic inversion of sentence structure—"She it was who had insisted..." and "Of the steamer Rocky Mount there was no sign"—he elsewhere writes of a character "puking" and puts the unlikely "ain't" in the mouth of the bookish Tasmin.) Readers will likely forgive the inconsistencies of this book for the same reason nineteenth-century readers followed the installments of Charles Dickens' novels—to see what happens next. As Tasmin reflects, "The prairie at least offered the hope of surprise," and one suspects that McMurtry has plenty of surprises in store. —Don McLeese

Publishers Weekly