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Rating: 
Summary: no trouble with this 'Tombstone'
Review: Another book of Wyatt Earp and his times, you ask? Certainly, and a darn good one, too, I would respond.
It seems of late many people are seeing the Earps, and Wyatt in particular, as villains, the ones wearing the "black hats" where the 1880s and Tombstone are concerned. One writer straight-faced said Earp was never an official badge wearer in Tombstone! That one was really a new one to hear.
Though Wyatt and many others involved had their failings and flaws, I tend to view the Earps as the best choice of all those involved. More than anything, the events of those gunsmoke-filled years, were caused by power politics, republican or democrat, as much as any cause.
As a four-time Spur award winning author, Mr. Wheeler has written an engrossing study of the 1880s Tombstone events, with all its resultant violence. All the usual suspects are here: Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Curly Bill, the Cowboy element, the Clantons, and of course, Wyatt Earp and his brothers. Though the story has been told and retold, this book gives very good account. Not since the fictional treatments of Loren Estlemen or Robert B. Parker, have I enjoyed a book as much dealing with this subject.
I recently read what I consider a very arguable article about Wyatt, in a western magazine. Again, I haven't viewed the latest stuff on television, but I read where one episode has someone running Wild Bill out of a certain western town. Oh,really!!! But I digress.
If a reader has any 'objective' interest in just what happened back then, in the town 'too tough to die, check this one out.
And Mr. Wheeler takes care to mention some modern non-fiction writers in his notes. Between the fictional and non-fictional writings, there is much reading of interest here.
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