We've come to the end of the road for our favorite U.S. marshal, Raylan Givens, at least in literary form. The final novel featuring the lawman who seemed more suited to live in the Old West than current times was aptly named after our hero, Raylan.
Having read the previous stories by author Elmore Leonard, this novel is based solely in the reality of the FX television series and is not a direct follow-up to the previous tales. The biggest sign that this is the case is the fact that, spoiler alert for the short story Fire in the Hole, Boyd Crowder is still alive. It seems the writers or producers of the show liked Walton Goggins so much as Boyd that they kept him alive on the television show. The details of his introduction play out nearly the exact same way as they do in the short story he was featured in, however, the ending changes with him surviving his shootout with Raylan.
I'm not sure when the last novel was written in comparison to what season was taking place, but there were also some slight (and in certain cases major) differences between Raylan and the TV show. The one that comes to mind most easily are two characters by the name of Coover and Dickie. In the novel they are part of the Crowe family and end up dealt with rather quickly in the first few chapters. However, in the show they are part of the Bennett family from season two and their fates are quite different.
Despite these difference and inconsistencies with how the literary Raylan Givens compares to his television counterpart, the novel was interesting. However, many elements of it were repurposed into the series, so it all felt a bit familiar. It was sort of like a mirror episode of Star Trek or being in an alternate Spider-Man universe. Everything was nearly the same, but the inconsistencies were jarring.
I'll be taking a little break from Leonard, but will get back into his novels a little later.
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