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Journey of the Dead
In Loren D. Estleman's Journey of the Dead, when Pat Garrett killed his poker buddy, Billy the Kid, he had no idea what a terrible emotional price he would pay. Haunted by memories of Billy, Garrett wanders the New Mexico desert in a fruitless pursuit of peace.
Deep in the same desert, an ancient Spanish alchemist searches for the fabled philosopher's stone. Resolutely alone in his quest he devotes his long life to hunting the secrets of the old gods.
As these two men seek answers to questions that have confounded mankind for centuries, their stories encompass the panorama of American history. This journey from wild frontier into the twentieth century is an unforgettable experience.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Deep in the same desert, an ancient Spanish alchemist searches for the fabled philosopher's stone. Resolutely alone in his quest he devotes his long life to hunting the secrets of the old gods.
As these two men seek answers to questions that have confounded mankind for centuries, their stories encompass the panorama of American history. This journey from wild frontier into the twentieth century is an unforgettable experience.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1998
1 person is currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Loren D. Estleman
317 books282 followersLoren D. Estleman is an American writer of detective and Western fiction. He writes with a manual typewriter.
Estleman is most famous for his novels about P.I. Amos Walker. Other series characters include Old West marshal Page Murdock and hitman Peter Macklin. He has also written a series of novels about the history of crime in Detroit (also the setting of his Walker books.) His non-series works include Bloody Season, a fictional recreation of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and several novels and stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.
Series:
* Amos Walker Mystery
* Valentino Mystery
* Detroit Crime Mystery
* Peter Macklin Mystery
* Page Murdock Mystery
Estleman is most famous for his novels about P.I. Amos Walker. Other series characters include Old West marshal Page Murdock and hitman Peter Macklin. He has also written a series of novels about the history of crime in Detroit (also the setting of his Walker books.) His non-series works include Bloody Season, a fictional recreation of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and several novels and stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.
Series:
* Amos Walker Mystery
* Valentino Mystery
* Detroit Crime Mystery
* Peter Macklin Mystery
* Page Murdock Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 17, 2025
What a good book! The author provides such an immersive experience within the pages of this book. The book is set in a time when the American West is going through incredible changes: widespread electrification, automobile mass production, and statehoods.
Pat Garratt, the Long Man, and El Viejo, the medicine man, meet in Viejo's home. Turns out their relationship is really just a byline to the Long Man's story. I wish there had been more to Viejo's story.
You read a book, and, realizing the pages not read are becoming fewer, you wonder how the end of the story will be presented, how the story will wrap up. You draw your own conclusions, but, I hated the story ending. It was like the author just got tired of writing and, pow, the story was over. The Long Man was gone. What about his wife? What about his children? Nothing, the story was over.
Pat Garratt, the Long Man, and El Viejo, the medicine man, meet in Viejo's home. Turns out their relationship is really just a byline to the Long Man's story. I wish there had been more to Viejo's story.
You read a book, and, realizing the pages not read are becoming fewer, you wonder how the end of the story will be presented, how the story will wrap up. You draw your own conclusions, but, I hated the story ending. It was like the author just got tired of writing and, pow, the story was over. The Long Man was gone. What about his wife? What about his children? Nothing, the story was over.
March 19, 2024
Book Review #309
Pat Garrett was 6’ 5” - a very tall law man - and is best known for arresting and later killing Billy the Kid. “Journey of the Dead” is a bit of an immersive character study that shows us Garrett’s place in the old west.
The long, at-times engrossing and at-other-times creepy narrative puts us in the shoes of a man who likes to kill people, who wants the kills to be justified, and wants to be an unattached, respected, and wealthy man in the west. Unfortunately for Garret, as more time passes from the Billy the Kid shooting, it becomes harder and harder. The west is tamed between 1870-1905 and civilization doesn’t quite work for a stubborn guy like Garrett who was used to having the veneer of righteousness when carrying out his duties consequence-free.
There’s a sequence early in the novel when a badger eats some of Garrett's chickens at night. After a few tries to trap the thing he eventually figures what gap in the henhouse it is using and he just sits and waits for it, shooting the badger dead when it sneaks in the next time.
Later in the novel, as he’s determinedly but happily making his way across a harshly barren desert landscape tracking an outlaw, he reminisces on the badger kill and admits to himself he didn’t kill the badger to protect his chickens. He killed the badger to kill it.
We're left thinking that this man really just wants a world where there are bad guys guilty of breaking the law so he could hunt them down and kill them justifiably. Hunting and killing are what he is best at, but he doesn't want to be the bad guy. This might be that mystical "gray area" that sits between black and white, I guess. Further highlighting the conflict of morality in a character like Garrett, he is haunted throughout the book by the ghost of Billy the Kid in nightmares over the 30 years that follow Billy's death (hence Billy the Kid accompanies Pat on this "Journey of the Dead.") There are also public vs private personal conflicts as Pat tends to only want the cold, good side of him to show in public and is offended when his private, personal indiscretions are held against him.
Verdict: A complex character study with overwhelming imagery, creepy adult content and rolling prose, "Journey of the Dead" is a good look at a complicated character. Estleman might be guilty here of trying to knock down our American heroes like many post-modern western authors love to do, but Garrett was never really a hero anyway; my familiarity with the Lincoln County War situation made it easier to see this one as a fictional attempt to get inside a real man's head (not necessarily Garrett's - he might be a placeholder for all men) and not a nonfiction indictment on that man's life or character.
Jeff’s Rating: 3 / 5 (Good)
Movie rating if made into a movie: R
Pat Garrett was 6’ 5” - a very tall law man - and is best known for arresting and later killing Billy the Kid. “Journey of the Dead” is a bit of an immersive character study that shows us Garrett’s place in the old west.
The long, at-times engrossing and at-other-times creepy narrative puts us in the shoes of a man who likes to kill people, who wants the kills to be justified, and wants to be an unattached, respected, and wealthy man in the west. Unfortunately for Garret, as more time passes from the Billy the Kid shooting, it becomes harder and harder. The west is tamed between 1870-1905 and civilization doesn’t quite work for a stubborn guy like Garrett who was used to having the veneer of righteousness when carrying out his duties consequence-free.
There’s a sequence early in the novel when a badger eats some of Garrett's chickens at night. After a few tries to trap the thing he eventually figures what gap in the henhouse it is using and he just sits and waits for it, shooting the badger dead when it sneaks in the next time.
Later in the novel, as he’s determinedly but happily making his way across a harshly barren desert landscape tracking an outlaw, he reminisces on the badger kill and admits to himself he didn’t kill the badger to protect his chickens. He killed the badger to kill it.
We're left thinking that this man really just wants a world where there are bad guys guilty of breaking the law so he could hunt them down and kill them justifiably. Hunting and killing are what he is best at, but he doesn't want to be the bad guy. This might be that mystical "gray area" that sits between black and white, I guess. Further highlighting the conflict of morality in a character like Garrett, he is haunted throughout the book by the ghost of Billy the Kid in nightmares over the 30 years that follow Billy's death (hence Billy the Kid accompanies Pat on this "Journey of the Dead.") There are also public vs private personal conflicts as Pat tends to only want the cold, good side of him to show in public and is offended when his private, personal indiscretions are held against him.
Verdict: A complex character study with overwhelming imagery, creepy adult content and rolling prose, "Journey of the Dead" is a good look at a complicated character. Estleman might be guilty here of trying to knock down our American heroes like many post-modern western authors love to do, but Garrett was never really a hero anyway; my familiarity with the Lincoln County War situation made it easier to see this one as a fictional attempt to get inside a real man's head (not necessarily Garrett's - he might be a placeholder for all men) and not a nonfiction indictment on that man's life or character.
Jeff’s Rating: 3 / 5 (Good)
Movie rating if made into a movie: R
April 1, 2022
Gosh. Don't know where to start! Really well written, Estleman convincingly portrayed the West for me, I could easily see it, feel it, smell it. He did a wonderful job of telling a story of the west through the end of the Civil War through to the early 1900's. Good read. And yes, it is filled with the sexual and racial behaviours that you would expect of the times. I was shocked at one point by a thought expressed by the hero just before his demise - won't list it here - but it did get me thinking, let me tell you! It made me want to ask every single old man that I saw that day, (and there were a few) if it was a truth, and if I was the only woman alive who didn't know it!
December 14, 2018
This was a great read, more literature set in the west than a traditional western. I am not as eloquent or gifted with words as Estleman, who has written some truly beautiful phrases and thoughts of contemplation through the two protagonists - one a restless former lawman and the other an elderly, almost ancient alchemist.
November 26, 2018
😩. Very difficult to listen to. For me a very uninteresting book. Painful really....
July 14, 2021
Estleman at his best! The literary Western lives.
May 27, 2016
#10 in the American West series. Based on the life of Pat Garrett after he shot and killed William 'Billy the Kid' Bonney. Billy was killed in 1881 while being hunted for the murder of two sheriff's deputies during a jailbreak. Pat was murdered in 1908 in disputed circumstances and during the 27 years between their deaths (6-9 years longer than the life of Billy) his defining characteristic was that he killed 'Billy the Kid'.
#10 - The American West series - Journey of the Dead is narrated by an alchemist named Francisco de la Zaragoza who has spent his long life searching for the philosopher's stone and is famous as a healer and wise man. Sheriff Pat Garrett, haunted by the specter of Billy the Kid, seeks him out along the fabled Jornada de la Muerta, hoping that Francisco can make his nightmares go away. These two personalities swap their stories and evoke the splendor of the American Southwest. Billy Bonney is not romanticized here, but his story is told in language as polished as a buffalo nickel.
#10 - The American West series - Journey of the Dead is narrated by an alchemist named Francisco de la Zaragoza who has spent his long life searching for the philosopher's stone and is famous as a healer and wise man. Sheriff Pat Garrett, haunted by the specter of Billy the Kid, seeks him out along the fabled Jornada de la Muerta, hoping that Francisco can make his nightmares go away. These two personalities swap their stories and evoke the splendor of the American Southwest. Billy Bonney is not romanticized here, but his story is told in language as polished as a buffalo nickel.
March 20, 2011
Sam Peckinpah's film, PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID told the story of the two friends turned enemies quite truthfully. It also depicted Garrett's murder, but left a gap between the two deaths. Estleman's short novel fills in the gaps nicely. Garrett's post-Billy years are told by an ancient alchemist to whom Garrett visits for guidance. The journey of the title is two-fold: Garrett searches for peace from the haunting of Billy's ghost; the alchemist searches for the philosopher's stone.
I listened to the unabridged Dove Audiobook version narrated by the actor, Robert Forster. I highly recommend it.
I listened to the unabridged Dove Audiobook version narrated by the actor, Robert Forster. I highly recommend it.
December 31, 2008
I loved this book. Estleman toggles between the story of Pat Garrett, who killed William Bonney (aka Billy the Kid), and that of a 100-year-old plus Native American medicine man and mystic who offered Garrett a potion to help stop Garrett's nightmares after he shoots Bonney.
I hate to admit it, but I really like a good western and this is a great one. I also really enjoyed Ron Hansen's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." I'm not going to read Zane Grey, but hope to find more novels like this one.
I hate to admit it, but I really like a good western and this is a great one. I also really enjoyed Ron Hansen's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." I'm not going to read Zane Grey, but hope to find more novels like this one.
January 28, 2010
The story of Billy the Kid and his killing by Pat Garrett is one of the great legends of the West. I've read and seen many versions of it, but Estleman turns it into a fascinating piece of art in which the killing itself is almost anticlimactic. It is Garrett's story, how he deals with the demons that torture him for his deed, that this book tells. A book that should be read by anyone who believes westerns are outdated and cliched.
January 25, 2016
Not as good as I thought it was going to be. The haunting by Billy the Kid's ghost was interesting idea. It's a shame that the rest of the book didn't hold up. The plot line of Pat Garrett is really sporadic and doesn't really have a narrow theme to it. The Spanish alchemist is barely involved in the whole book, which makes me question why they bothered to mention him at all in the summary on the back cover.
What surprises me is that it won two awards.
What surprises me is that it won two awards.
November 18, 2011
Found this on my done shelves and couldn't for the life of me remember it.
Started reading it again.
Very pleasantly surprised and can't think of why it was such a blank.
If there is such an animal as a literary western, this is it.
Incredibly lyrical, vivid prose.
Started reading it again.
Very pleasantly surprised and can't think of why it was such a blank.
If there is such an animal as a literary western, this is it.
Incredibly lyrical, vivid prose.
May 18, 2011
I remember reading it and enjoying it but the details are fuzzy.
August 10, 2014
A numinous hybrid of Carlos Castaneda and Sam Peckinpah. Don't think I've read anything quite like it before. Highly recommended, even to them what don't care for westerns.
June 8, 2013
I enjoyed the book, but I am going to have to think ahile before I can come up with a theme. It may be "Vanity, vanity, all things are vanity."
June 8, 2013
This book left nothing to the readers imagination in terms of the descriptions. The writing was not my favorite either and was a tough book for me to follow.
Read
January 14, 2009W Est
Read
March 15, 2014DNF
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews