Valdez is Coming Audiobook By Elmore Leonard cover art

Valdez is Coming

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Valdez is Coming

By: Elmore Leonard
Narrated by: Keith Carradine
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They laughed at Roberto Valdez and then ignored him. But when a dark-skinned man was holed up in a shack with a gun, they sent the part-time town constable to deal with the problem, and made sure he had no choice but to gun the fugitive down. Trouble was, Valdez killed an innocent man. And when he asked for justice, and some money for the dead man's woman, they beat Valdez and tied him to a cross. They were still laughing when Valdez came back. And then they began to die.©1993 Elmore Leonard (P)2003 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Westerns
Tightly Plotted • Quick Paced • Excellent Narration • Vengeful Protagonist • Intense Excitement • Great Tale
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I have seen the movie, so I knew the story. Still loved listening to this. Keith Carradine keeps a good pace here, and his twangy voice puts you right back in the "old west".

Carradine tells us a good story here.

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I completely enjoyed this audiobook. The narration by Keith Carradine is excellent. I need to add that I have never read this particular novel. I cannot compare it to the audiobook. I am under the impression it is abridged. However it is an excellent listening experience. ThNk You...

An Excellent Audiobook, Apparently Abridged

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Fun recording! A little like watching the story on a vintage TV show but having your imagination fill in the blanks which is way better. I look forward to more stories to blank out the hassles of rush hour traffic.

Valdez is Coming

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Elmore Leonard story and Keith Carradine's voice makes for a great tale. get it today.

Great story, great narratot

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Granted this is a rather short and quick paced story, but it is still pretty good. I know the concept is pretty standard fare. The unassuming guy who turns out to be a stone cold killer. Then again you have to realize how long ago this was written.

Good Deal

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Only thing wrong with this reading is that it's too short .., but that's the story, short, intense, exciting.

Elmore Leonard at his best

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Not every Elmore Leonard story gives you someone to root for, but this one does. And not every one of his novels is tightly plotted, but this one is, at least in this condensed version. I can’t compare it to the full-length novel, which I’ve never read, but the story works very well in this version. You only need to remember one thing: Valdez is coming.

Poetic Justice

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"No, that was your time. You get one time, mister, to prove who you are."
- Elmore Leonard, Valdez is Coming

'Valdez is Coming', published in 1970, is the third book in Library of America's Westerns: Last Stand at Saber River / Hombre / Valdez Is Coming / Forty Lashes Less One / Stories. It is also one of my favorites. It is essentially a quest/revenge novel (quest if you think Valdez is coming for the widow, revenge if you think Valdez is coming for payback). The knight in this book is town constable Bob Valdez, who is put into an unfortunate situation where he shoots an innocent man (because of the misdeeds and racism of others). When he tries to put things right with the woman of the dead man, he sets the stage for a confrontation with Frank Tanner (a rich rancher/smuggler) who thinks he owns the town.

It wasn't a perfect novel, but it was great for what it was. You don't ride into a Elmore Leonard western not knowing basically what you WANT and what you are going to get. Leonard delivers both to you with more accuracy than you thought possible and quicker than you were expecting. LIke most of the novels (and some of the stories) in the Library of America collection, this one too was made into a move. I'm not sure I would have cast Burt Lancaster as Bob Valdez, but the movie came out in 1971. Hopefully, if this were remade today, it would star Brad Pitt.

You will notice I only gave this 1-star for performance and 2-stars for overall. That is PERFECTLY correlated to the fact that this was an abridged novel. It wasn't like it was some 40+hour Les Miserables or War and Peace. The original story is less than 200 pages. Why abridge that?

No, that was your time.

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What would have made Valdez is Coming better?

5 more hours of content. When I bought the book I missed the fact that it was only 2 hours loing. It is not a book, its a short story.

A TWO HOUR BOOK for ONE CREDIT???

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A great short novel by Elmore Leonard, but don't buy this audiobook. It's abridged, the audio quality is not great, and Keith Carradine speaks fast, so it's hard to understand sometimes.
This deserves an unabridged recording of the whole book.

Abridged

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