“Everyone has to have their hero,” Assistant District Attorney Alex
Cahill-Walker once said of her husband, Walker, a Texas Ranger. Texas Ranger
Cordell Walker’s hero just happens to be one of the greatest Rangers to ever
wear the badge; Hayes Cooper. The modern day Ranger even has a picture of
the legend hanging up in his own home and has told stories of the adventures
of Hayes Cooper throughout the run of the series. But this book finds him in
a situation that seems to mirror a situation that Hayes Cooper went through
in 1901.
The Rangers of today are an advanced and elite group of Dallas’ and Fort
Worth’s best cops that have gone on to wear the badge. They have the backing
of every police force in Texas and the power to take over any investigation.
Back when Cooper was wearing the badge, it was a bit different. He was
almost like a bounty hunter only with the law on his side. He went from town
to town tracking down some of the Texas’ biggest criminals on horseback,
often sleeping on the ground with only his horse as company. It was a hard
life, but Cooper and almost all the men who bore the star lived for it.
Cooper was tracking a bank robber that had been eluding him some how for
months and he was right on the heels of the robber when he tricks him and
somehow gets away. Without any other options, Cooper heads to the nearest
town which happens to be Fort Worth. Then he meets two men who seem to be
good, law-abiding citizens that just want to help him track down his enemy.
The story takes a dramatic twist when Cooper finds out his friends aren’t
really friends of the law at all and then his enemy takes a child hostage.
Now this has turned into even more situation then Cooper had figured on.
Walker begins his side of the story by telling this very story of Hayes
Cooper to a group of children at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame located in
Waco, Texas (which this reviewer can proudly say she’s been to it and loved
it thanks to Robert Griffith). He is interrupted in his story when another
set of bank robberies has occurred and now he’s hot on the trail of his own
bank robbers. We do get the story of these bank robbers who are quite
different from the ones that Cooper was tracking. The lead bank robber
thinks that they are Butch and Sundance with their Wild Bunch group they ran
around with. When his partner kills some people in the last robbery, he
points out that Butch and Sundance would never kill anyone for money. That’s
when things go wrong for the lead bank robber and he’s murdered. His
“friend” goes to the extreme and kidnaps the daughter and wife of a rich
business man. Suddenly Walker’s story he was telling the kids seems to be
happening to him and his partner in modern Dallas/Fort Worth.
This book was definitely better then the first one. I like how the author
mirrored the two stories and somehow made the believable that these events
to could happen to two different men in different centuries. There are a lot
of differences, but there are also a lot of things that you know made the
two stories link up even with years between them. Walker and Cooper may both
be Texas Rangers, but they get the job done differently. It may be because
of the men they are or just the difference in the times they lived, but you
get to see how the two Rangers are different. I loved this book and think
James Reasoner has done an awesome job sticking with the show and mastering
the magic from the screen to the page. If you are a “Walker, Texas Ranger”
fan… then you’ll love this book! Too bad he only wrote three though. Oh,
well, only one more to go before they are all reviewed now! But this book
improved from the first one and that’s why I give this book a five.
Title: Walker, Texas Ranger: Hell's Half Acre |
7/4/2005
