Trouble in Tombstone

By Richard S. Wheeler

Book Overview

A Four-time Spur Award-winning AuthorTombstone, Arizona Territory, in the 1880s was a paradise for those who thought themselves exempt from the law. A land ruled by wranglers' whims and Wells Fargo,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 045121370X
• ISBN13: 9780451213709
• Release Date: December 2004
• Publisher: Signet Book
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

An Unexpected Treasure

I began reading Trouble In Tombstone expecting to be disappointed. I've never been a big fan of westerns, I've never been intrigued by the gunfight at the OK Corral, and I've never been starstruck by Wyatt Earp. The trouble I would find in Tombstone, I thought, would be finding the will to finish the book. Add that to the long list of things I've been wrong about. Instead, I found myself mesmerized. Written as an autobiography of an aged Wyatt Earp, the story centers on his adventures in Tombstone and their immediate aftermath. The narrative begins soon after the arrival in Tombstone of the Earp clan and describes the interplay of forces that led to the famous gunfight, and just as importantly, to the vendetta afterward. As the Earps are drawn inexorably into the showdown with the Cowboys, the reader is drawn into the tale. The Earps are outnumbered, the police are corrupt, and the Cowboys have no qualms with shooting a man in the back. Wheeler's prose brings alive the places and characters of the story. Intrigued, I found myself researching the life and times of Wyatt Earp and Tombstone, and to my delight I found that Wheeler's book is true to both, capturing them so accurately a reader might come away dusty and sunburned. In the end, the book is a story of love and loyalty, of faith and friendship, of corruption and redemption. Wheeler draws Wyatt Earp as a man who knows his own flaws and accepts them. These traits are as winsome today as they were in the old west, and perhaps that is why the book resonates so well across the decades. The trouble I found in Tombstone was putting the book down to get some sleep.

Wyatt Earp--now let's set the record straight.Some of it is legend,some fiction and some is fact.

If you have been interested in what took place in The Old West;you'll have read or watched many accounts of The Earps,Bat masterson,Doc Holliday,Tombstone,Dodge City,the Clantons,the McLaurys,Johnny Ringo,Frank Sitwell,Luke Short,John Behan,Kate Elder,and a host of others who were part of the scene,particularly in the late 1870's and the early 1880's. Richard Wheeler,the author of more than 40 novels and the winner of several Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America ,has written this book through the eyes of Wyatt Earp, as if it were Wyatt writing his own autobiography and attempting to tell what really happened and more particularly why. There are a lot of people,places and events to sort out and Wheeler has done a supurb job of doing it,and in a remarkably coherent and easy to follow manner.He does it so well that one tends to put aside everything you have read and heard and just sit back and let him tell it to you the way Wyatt saw it. This is called a novel;but it could well be considered a history,an autobiography or anything else. As you read this book, you will quickly realize that Wheeler has a great deal of knowledge on the subject,has done a great amount of research,has sorted out the wheat from the vast amount of chaff;but more importantly has tried to look into the minds of all these people and tell us how they were thinking and what motivated them. While the prime subject of the book is Wyatt Earp,the situations that were in place before Wyatt came to Tombstone and the situations after the Shootout at the OK Corral are important to understand and that is what this book is all about. When you have finished this book;you'll probably come to the conclusion that Wheeler has gotten the story just about as correct as it's ever likely to be. At the end of the book there is the Author,s Notes. I think it would be beneficial to read these notes befor reading the book.He even discusses what he feels are other worthwhile books to pursue for further information. As a fan of the Old West ,I found this an excellent account of the period ,characters and events around Tombstone ,and highly reccomend it,even if you've heard the story many times.