"Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell"--from Tom Clavin--the true story of the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, and the famous Battle at the OK Corral, by the New York Times bestselling author of "Dodge City" and "Wild Bill"

Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell

On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, nine men clashed in what would be known as the most famous shootout in American frontier history. Thirty bullets were exchanged in thirty seconds, killing three men and wounding three others.

The fight sprang forth from a tense, hot summer. Cattle rustlers had been terrorizing the back country of Mexico and selling the livestock they stole to corrupt ranchers. The Mexican government built forts along the border to try to thwart American outlaws, while Arizona citizens became increasingly agitated. Rustlers, who became known as the cow-boys, began to kill each other as well as innocent citizens. That October, tensions boiled over with Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne confronting the Tombstone marshal, Virgil Earp, and the suddenly deputized Wyatt and Morgan Earp and shotgun-toting Doc Holliday.

Bestselling author Tom Clavin peers behind decades of legend surrounding the story of Tombstone to reveal the true story of the drama and violence that made it famous. Tombstone also digs deep into the vendetta ride that followed the tragic gunfight, when Wyatt and Warren Earp and Holliday went vigilante to track down the likes of Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, and other cowboys who had cowardly gunned down his brothers. That "vendetta ride" would make the myth of Wyatt Earp complete and punctuate the struggle for power in the American frontier's last boom town.

"Rootin'-tootin' history....Updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin's careful research and vivid writing." ―Kirkus Reviews

"Clavin briskly sketches dozens of historical figures and gamely interrogates primary and secondary sources to separate fact from fiction. This animated account entertains." ―Publishers Weekly


TOM CLAVIN

 

TOM CLAVIN was born in the Bronx and grew up on Long Island. After studies at Suffolk County Community College, University of Southern California, SUNY Albany, and SUNY Stony Brook, he emerged with Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in English and Literature.

In the newspaper business, Tom was a reporter for The New York Times, served as managing editor at The East Hampton Star, was the editor-in-chief of The Independent group of weekly newspapers, and was a columnist and contributing writer at the Press News Group on eastern Long Island. As a freelance writer he wrote for several prominent magazines on a variety of topics, including Men's Journal, Smithsonian, Parade, Reader's Digest, Golf, Cosmopolitan, and Manhattan. He has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, and National Newspaper Association.

Four of his books have been New York Times best sellers: Dodge City, The Heart of Everything That Is, Halsey's Typhoon, and The Last Stand of Fox Company. Other recent titles that have received popular and critical acclaim include The DiMaggios, Lucky 666, Last Men Out, Gil Hodges, Roger Maris, Being Ted Williams, and Reckless. The trade paperback edition of Valley Forge, published by Simon and Schuster, was released in October 2018, will be available this November, and Wild Bill was published by St. Martin's Press in February 2019. Also due out this November, from Hanover Square Press, is All Blood Runs Red.

Tom is a full-time resident of Sag Harbor.

https://www.tomclavin.com/