Customer Reviews

John Selman, Gunfighter

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Leon Metz creates a very fine life portrait of John Selman. Information about him seems scarce until Elpaso Texas, but Metz provides valuable information about life in the lawless days of Texas, thourgh exhaustive research. Metz's book allows the reader to create his own image and opinion of Selman. I thought the book read quite quickly, very informative, and entertaining. Anyone interested in The Old West, I highly suggest reading!!!

I normally love Mr. Metz's books. This was one he wrote many years ago. The story is of a fairly interesting man, but lacks some of the punch of later Metz books, and some of the flair with words, and story telling talent. Selman is kind of a boring character anyway, noted mainly for his killing of the true hard case gunfighter John Wesley Hardin, Selman was a minor player in the west. With my interest in Fort Griffin and Selman's ties to that location, I had to get this book to read, and it does provide some good info otherwise not normally found anywhere. Selman was a mean, quiet man, with a nasty temper, a taste for tainted ladies and booze, so was not exactly of the caliber of Wyatt Earp, and surely not the gunman that J.W. Hardin, or Doc Holliday, or Earp were.