Customer Reviews

Wyatt Earp's Tombstone Vendetta

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"Wyatt Earp's Tombstone Vendetta" is a must read for anyone seriously interested in the true story of the Earp's in Tombstone. Boyer is the only writer today who had intimate knowledge obtained from the family of Wyatt Earp. The author tells us the story through a fictitious narrator named Ted Ten Eyck who arrives in Tombstone via the stage from Benson, Az. A fellow passenger on that stage is none other than Curly Bill himself. The book grabs you on the first page and transports you back to the streets of old Tombstone. You can almost taste and smell the old boom town. Glenn Boyer uses his considerable skills as a writer to blend cold verifiable facts with Earp family remembrances to tell us the entire story for the first time; the politics of an important mining district in conflict with the cattle ranchers (rustlers ?) who came first.....the struggle for control of the town and the cripply injury to Virgil, and the murder of brother Morgan. I found the characters came alive as real people instead of the wooden and lifeless characters within the history books. This book is a MUST for the Earp buff and for the first-time reader of Earpinan. This is a book you have to have. Enjoy it... Jim Groom

As another reviewer has written, this book will grab you on Page One. I have never read a better Historical Novel. This is Boyer's true masterpiece and should be owned by all Western Buffs!!! The insight in which Boyer rights of the Earp's is legendary and he puts it all together in this gem!!! I have read this at least 5 times and find something new with each visit. Buy this now!!!

Wyatt Earp's Tombstone Vendetta takes the reader on a fresh "ride" through those days when Earp was either fleeing corrupt officials to keep his liberty or avenging the death and disfigurement of his brothers that the local law had abandoned. A truly remarkable piece of writing from an author, who for sixty+ years has been the primary source of research on Wyatt Earp: possibly our most remarkable Old West figure. This is not a stale history as has been submitted on this subject by so many people, nor is it a rehash of material taken without credit from the sources of others. My only wish is that this book be given a reprint, as it is a great source for understanding 1880's western life as told by a first-rate author.

good book. But written in a confusing style. Author covers same topic in multiple chapters i.e. the death of Johnny Ringo. It is manifestly wrong not to reveal the identity of Ted Ten Eyck, if he has passed away. This issue does not complete the topic of Wyatt Earp....Ten Eyck might be a Red Herring.

Enjoyable none the less!

First of all, let's get something out of the way. While some have criticized this books credibility, the author clearly details his vast and unparalleled access to sources who know what happened, and even has pictures of himself with some of the contributors. Having studied the field of Earp and the Old West, I can confidently state that I believe that what is in here is just as accurate or more so as nearly anything else I've read. For example, some authors' works are deemed "credible" if they cite newspaper articles from the day. Okay...take Tombstone for instance. It had a number of newspapers which gave wildly different accounts of events, depending upon the political persuasion of the editor. Hardly a 100% accurate source (i.e. SOMEONE was lying!) So why is this book any less credible than others? If you want a book that cites a bunch of dry newspaper articles, and gives a black and white chronology of events at Tombstone, there are plenty to choose from. If you want a book that is very well written and answers a lot of questions previously unknown, I recommend this one. I couldn't put it down. Perhaps the best book I have read on Earp/Tombstone history, and will likely read it again. Dave in Iowa

Vendetta is a non-fiction novel using a straw man as anarrator to overcome reticence of those who provided the informationin many cases. The author used this device in lieu of not divulging the information at all to a wide interested audience. It has been understood and applauded by many and attacked by a few non-sophisticated critics. This is the true story of the Earp Saga at Tombstone, told at last. The author has a small, fanatical group of detractors who have attacked this book without any bonafide basis of their allegations except unsupported assetions.

This book entrances the reader with a sense of time and place. It is never clear who is narrating it in fact, but that is part of its charm - the reader is sure he is there, regardless of who is narrating and that the people, the Earps and their enemies, are real for the first time.

It has been said that there is no such thing as a non-fiction novel, and that's usually because the people who think so believe a novel means fiction per se. This is not so. A novel is an artisitic form and is a far more interesting way of relating history than the dry, footnoted fashion that drives people away from history.

When I was finished with this book, I had a sense of having personally experienced the adventures of the Earps in their Tombstone Vendetta.

I discovered later that the book is venomously attacked as a hoax by a few hard core Earp buffs. I can't imagine why. The overall artisitic impact and sense of reality overcomes any narrow objections to interpretations of facts in an area where no one seems to agree on the facts anyhow, regardless of how they are presented.

In my opinion, if this were the only book a person read about The Earps in Tombstone, they would know more about it than from all the others preceding this astounding tour de force.
Not the least of its virtues is that it does not leave unresolved the mystery of why the Earps remained in Tombstone long after commons sense suggested that they move on before they were all murdered.

Someone is defending this book which the author admitted a year ago Oct was a LITERARY DEVICE in which he concocted the sources. Can that be HISTORY. IT reads well and would have made a terrific novel. Anything about Wyatt Earp is snapped up but let's keep history and fiction apart, otherwise our heroes will have feet of clay. I personalaly enjoyed the book and always thought that the author was being TONGUE in cheek with his Ted Ten Eyck narration. And even the Library of Congress was not fooled as they classify it as "juvenalia" ie children's lit. ie fiction. So perhaps we have a tempest in a teapot. The real question is "Who killed Johnny Ringo" I ain't gonna let the cat out of the bag. You will have to read to find out. This author knows a lot more than he says. What next" The definitive bio. of Wyatt Earp OR MAYBE THE REAL MEMOIRS OF Josephine Earp?

I read Wyatt Earp's Tombstone Vendetta for the first time--and enjoyed it--shortly after I became interested in Tombstone, Arizona and the people who lived there in the early 1880s. I read it for the second time after I had become much more familiar with the history of the town and the story of Wyatt Earp, and I enjoyed it much more. The more knowledge one has about Tombstone and its "players," the more they will come to life in a reading of this book.

When this book was first offered to the public, it was not clear exactly whether it was radically new historic material, or the author's imagination. Without recounting the explosive battles between Earp historians that followed, when the dust shook out, it became clear that fiction it was. As fiction, my own opinion is that it is rather average--Boyer is not a prose master. But it does have some fun and fine moments. If you like educated speculation on how the past might have played out, it will not disappoint.