Al Swearengen

Al Swearengen runs the Gem Saloon, and by extension a fair share of the lawless camp of Deadwood, from behind a bar counter and a merciless line of profanity. He deals in whores, whiskey, and information, extending false hospitality to strangers while calculating exactly what they're worth to him. Nothing enters or leaves the camp without his knowledge, or his cut.

McShane makes monstrousness eloquent: Al's soliloquies to a severed head, his brutal negotiations, his tenderness toward the vulnerable he'd never admit to protecting, all come wrapped in Shakespearean profanity that turns violence into music. The writing never excuses him, but it insists on his intelligence, his humor, his strange code — and McShane finds the aristocrat inside the thug.