MUST SEE, MUST READ

TOM HORN IN LIFE AND LEGEND

(2014, by Larry D. Ball): This is the most thoroughly researched volume on the life and death of one of the West’s most enigmatic figures. Ball has done his homework on the sometime scout and controversial range detective, and no matter how steeped in “Horniana” the reader might be, there is plenty in this book to hold one’s attention.

BOOKS

Bloody Season (1987, by Loren D. Estleman): Scores of historians and novelists have written about the Earps during their brief but bloody time in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, and Estleman’s novel ranks near the top, outranking even Robert B. Parker’s popular Gunman’s Rhapsody. Estleman grabs readers from the very first sentence and keeps them riveted—no matter how well they know the story—right till the end.

Desperadoes (1979, by Ron Hansen): Hansen’s first effort is a historical novel centered on the Dalton Gang, and his command of language and idiom is stunning. He humanizes the fated brothers without glamorizing them and gives realistic depth to the other characters in the story. Rumor has it the book has been optioned for a movie. We can only hope it’s nearly as good as the film adaptation of Hansen’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

The Last Gunfighter: John Wesley Hardin (1995, by Richard C. Marohn): Of the many histories and novels based on the life of Texas’ most prolific man-killer, this ranks at the top. The Hardin emerging from Marohn’s pages is a stone-cold killer who always has a rationale for the mayhem he creates. Well told and documented. (For a firsthand glimpse into the mind of this psycho, also read Hardin’s autobiography, The Life of John Wesley Hardin.)

(2010, by Dan Rottenberg): Jack Slade gained Wild West infamy for allegedly tying an adversary to a corral post, shooting him in non-vital places all day, then cutting off the man’s ears to