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Title: A Cheat
Review: McMurtry never backs away from being a brutal narrator when he has to be -- death stalks many of his books from Horseman Pass By to Lonesome Dove, Streets of Laredo and Duane's Depressed, and death can come suddenly and shockingly, without respect for what readers have come to expect are "the rules" of storytelling. That being said, this is the one McMurtry book where the shock feels like a cheap device, instead of like pitiless but honest storytelling. Some Can Whistle meanders about, with Danny Deck trying to find common ground with his hell-on-wheels daughter, and then the book's big surprise comes, and then it's over. But that's about it -- the book just ends, and unlike, say, Streets of Laredo, you haven't learned anything. You've just been surprised, and that's not enough.
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