Dodge City

January 30, 2017
Recounting the most famous of cattle towns and its two most influential lawmen, Clavin (Reckless) argues that it wasn’t gunfights but rather the refusal to fight that eventually tamed Dodge City, Kans., the “wickedest town in the American west.” Though the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz., has passed into popular legend, fewer know of the Dodge City War, the last hurrah of the town’s violent legacy, which the legendary Wyatt Earp and lesser-known Bat Masterson resolved without violence. The romanticization and mythification of the West and the gunslinger is Clavin’s greatest challenge; with a firm dedication to the truth, he has attempted to confirm what he can and qualify what he cannot. Though this fact-checking may take some of the glamor out of the popular conception of Earp in particular, Clavin’s book brims with a colorful collection of real outlaws, sex workers, gamblers, and chorus dancers whose personalities, deeds, and even nicknames help readers understand why the Western legend entranced the nation in the first place. To know the history of Dodge City is to understand how the West was won, and this history is often just as captivating and strange as the legends that have supplanted it. Agent: Scott Gould, RLR Associates.

January 15, 2017
Of cowpokes, desperadoes, and the law in a Western town in which it wasn't always easy to tell which was which.Dodge City, Kansas, was founded as a military outpost on the western reaches of the plains. It became a supply center, a railhead, and a stockyard--all adding up to a place into which people, mostly young men, drifted. As practiced popular historian and journalist Clavin (Reckless: The Racehorse Who Became a Marine Corps Hero, 2014, etc.) notes, some of those young men were downright dumb, and many of them drowned whatever intelligence they had with alcohol. A story unfolds: one night, Wyatt Earp, renowned tough-guy lawman just this side of being an outlaw himself, grabs a miscreant by the ear, like a schoolmarm. "If his companions had been smart, the arrest would have signaled it was time to call it a night--but they weren't very smart," writes the author. They tried to free their buddy by standoff and ambush and finally slunk off. The moment, and Clavin's description of it, is characteristic: there's kerfuffle and anticlimax, with perhaps less gun smoke than might be expected. The author paints a lively portrait of the town and its denizens, particularly those well-known enforcers. Along the way, he reveals a few lesser-known aspects of their characters, such as Bat Masterson's Huck Finn-ish qualities, and he explicates the rules of faro, always helpful for understanding why the gaming table was often a flashpoint. There are even hints of revisionist history, as when Clavin notes the disproportionate number of African-American and other minority victims of violence: "The first recorded killing in the new Dodge City was that of a man known as Black Jack, because he was indeed a black man." There's some rehashing of the old but much that is new, making this a must-have for buffs--nothing world-changing but a nicely spun Wild West yarn to satisfy even the most ardent consumer of oaters.

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January 1, 2017
Wyatt Earp has been the subject of numerous biographies and filmssome frivolous, some seriousand even a television series. But Earp's friend and sometimes partner in law enforcement, Bat Masterson, has received far less attention, perhaps because reliable sources on his career are limited. Clavin (Reckless, 2014) offers a sweeping and often riveting account of the personalities and exploits of both men, whose paths repeatedly crossed as the postCivil War frontier moved westward. At the center of his narrative is their supposed taming of the wicked cow town of Dodge City, which lay at the rail terminus for shipping cattle across the nation. Clavin describes the pair as unlikely friends. Earp was tall, lean, quiet, sullen, and quick to take offense. Masterson was stocky, amiable, and liked to hoist drinks with friends. They shared a wanderlust well suited to their time and place as well as an ability to navigate the political and legal shoals of emerging frontier towns. This is an enjoyable saga, appealing to both Old West aficionados and general readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)