Sin killer : a novel / Larry McMurtry

McMurtry here begins a planned tetralogy of the adventures of the Berrybender family. The Berrybenders are wealthy members of the British aristocracy. In 1832, they travel up the Missouri River in a luxurious steamboat with a legion of servants, Indian chiefs, a cello-playing mistress, a cook, a tutor, a governess, and a French femme du chambre who manages to fall off the boat, much to the amusement of the Indians. In true McMurtry tradition, disaster strikes in myriad ways, and members of the party are scattered across the Great Plains. At the center of the action is the eldest Berrybender daughter, Tamsin, and her growing love for a mysterious Westerner, the fearsome Indian fighter/preacher known as the Sin Killer. It is hard to describe this work succinctly because there is so much action, but in a nutshell, it is a ship of fools, a slapstick black comedy set against the immense backdrop of the American West.