(2015)Pretty good novelization of Tombstone, AZ, and specifically Wyatt Earp. The story evolves around him and his eventual wife, Josie, all the way thru their deaths in the 20th century and ends with a brief account of the way media portrayed him ending with the 50's TV series. This tries to take the fluff and glamor off of Wyatt's portrayal and succeeds pretty well. He was not the hero and good guy that Hollywood has portrayed him, rather a schemer, scoundrel, entrepeneur, murderer and lawman probably in that order. He, his 3 brothers and Doc Holliday did their best to keep peace in Tombstone while enriching their lives the best they could. They ran up against other lawmen in overlapping jurisdictions and the Cow Boys who basically ran that section of Arizona.KIRKUS REVIEWRussell follows up her fictional portrait of Doc Holliday (Doc, 2011) with this fictional deconstruction of the shootout at the O.K. Corral.While Doc Holliday's charisma remains unrivaled, he becomes a kind of Greek chorus when Russell shifts her focus to Wyatt Earp, the ambivalent, morally ambiguous not-quite-hero of this Western Iliad; as Doc says after a gunfight in which Wyatt's boot heel is shot off but he remains unharmed, ?Achilles himself would have envied your luck.? By 1880, when Doc shows up, the Earp brothers have settled in Tombstone with their ?wives?¥Russell's strongly drawn women are frontier survivors who take what security they can get whether officially legal or not. Also new in town is 18-year-old Josie Marcus, a nice Jewish runaway from San Francisco who's ended up the "wife? of Republican politician/businessman Johnny Behan. The Irish Yankee is competing with southern Democrat Wyatt Earp for sheriff. Their friendly political rivalry turns ugly once they begin competing for Josie as well. Meanwhile, big business interests behind the silver mines want to rid Tombstone of the local rustlers and petty criminals threatening the town's reputation and the capitalists' financial futures. The novel shifts effortlessly between intimate focusÂ¥for instance, Doc quietly teaching Josie a piano piece; actually, every scene with Doc or Josie is a bull's eyeÂ¥and a wide angle that captures President James Garfield's assassination as well as the history of silver mining. The volatile mix of money, politics and personal vengeance intensifies in the months leading to the famous shootout and its less famous but brutal aftermath during which Wyatt loses his moral center. Eventually the novel becomes less violent but sadder and more realistic as Wyatt turns into a sullied victor on an odyssey toward Josie and pop-culture immortality.Despite all that has been written and filmed about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, Russell's pointedly anti-epic anti-romance is so epic and romantic that it whets the reader's appetite for more.Pub Date: March 3rd, 2015ISBN: 978-0-06-219876-1Page count: 320ppPublisher: Ecco/HarperCollinsReview Posted Online: Nov. 29th, 2014Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15th, 2014

I am afraid that if asked I would have to cut this rather dramatically. ( )

A heartbreaking follow-up to the brilliant Doc, but I'm not even remotely sorry to have read this. Not least because I found unexpected solace for recent happenings in one of Epitaph's themes: "Without justice, there is only revenge." (As said by a Mexican official urging the US government to curb the border violence against Mexican citizens...before the Mexican citizenry and government have no choice but to take the matter into their own hands.) ( )

Completely different from, and yet equally as impressive as, Doc by the same author.
This book is sad, gritty, realistic, and absorbing. The Wild West may be different from what you thought it was. Corrupt, violent, greedy, cruel, and stupid, it was a miserable place for lots of people. Russell didn’t shy away from showing some folk hero’s in a realistic and depressing light. Doc Holliday is the only character who retains even a hint of the old glow.
Best quote: Raise your sights, Sugar. If you aim low, all you’ll hit are rats, snakes, and rock bottom.
Highly recommended if you don’t mind popular myths being well and truly punctured. ( )

Nicely written with a different twist on Doc Holiday and the OK Corral. ( )