[Clavin] does a yeoman’s job of combining original research with a knack for page-turning narrative that gives readers an exciting tour of the celebrated gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Clavin pulls the curtain back on decades of legend surrounding this fight, the town, and its key players.
As [Clavin] explains in an author’s note, he wanted to complete a trilogy he had started with his books Dodge City and Wild Bill. Moreover, he writes, 'I wanted to tell my version of the Tombstone story, to have it refracted through my lens, and along the way provide new and previously overlooked characters and details.' It’s hard to know what those new details might be, since the book includes no notes section and his bibliography lists only secondary sources, which he quotes a bit too freely in the text, sometimes producing a cut-and-paste effect. Yet his account does trot along at a brisk pace: Stressing story line over nuance, Tombstone may appeal more to casual readers curious about the Earp saga.
Tombstone is written in a distinctively American voice. Unfortunately, it’s the voice of Gabby Hayes. Attempts to evoke the period are distractingly strenuous ... Ellipses pimple sentences randomly and often, serving no purpose. The book rattles with clichés like a box of stink bombs ... Tombstone reads like a transcription of Drunk History without the funny parts ... An awkwardly written book can still succeed through new research or interpretations. And I welcome a familiar story told well. But bad writing and unoriginality are not, as Clavin might say, a match made on the high-water mark.
... filled with biographical details, primary souces, dialog, and textual references to other works and films on the subject ... Readers who enjoyed the first two books in this popular history trilogy will look forward to this excellent and fitting conclusion on one famous town of the Wild West.
As history, Clavin’s Tombstone is lightweight. Unattributed dialogue makes it read like a novel, and not in a good way. It lacks an authoritative voice; on most key incidents Clavin offers no opinion but defers to other historians such as Earp biographer Casey Tefertiller and Holliday biographer Gary Roberts. Dubious claims are left unsourced, making it impossible to sift fact from fiction ... The sourcing information offered in some of the footnotes is bafflingly sloppy ... Clavin pulls off an amazing feat: he inflates the already hyped-up Earp saga with even more hyperbole ... This book does a major disservice by muddying some historical waters that took decades to clean up.
With a former newsman’s nose for the truth, Clavin has sifted the facts, myths, and lies to produce what might be as accurate an account as we will ever get of the old West’s most famous feud.
Clavin delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events ... The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be ... the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence ... Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
... not just another book about this famous gun battle ... Clavin uses multiple sources and his own background as a western historian to present an account that is almost an encyclopedia of Tombstone history, which he accomplishes in an enjoyable, light and effervescent style. Perhaps his most important contribution is his recognition that, more than anything, the shootings were a collision of a series of cataclysmic events that easily could have avoided violence if only the participants had taken a different path ... In a book exceeding 300 pages, the actual gun battle and aftermath cover approximately the final third of the chronicle. Before that, readers are treated to a history that travels almost as far back as Genesis ... A stirring combination of truth and legend, this is a story that lives on in American lore.
... scrupulous ... Clavin briskly sketches dozens of historical figures and gamely interrogates primary and secondary sources to separate fact from fiction. Though other histories, including Jeff Guinn’s The Last Gunfight, have told the story more definitively, this animated account entertains.
Replete with a rich repertoire of colorful characters, Clavin skillfully weaves multiple storylines into a taut thread that reaches its breaking point in late October 1881 ... Clavin is his most entertaining when exploring the Earp family history and discussing the brothers’ interesting habit of not marrying their lady companions ... A refreshing aspect of Tombstone is the experience of the women who were impacted by the events just as much as the men ... a rousing tale of American Wild West mythology recounted by a raconteur par excellence. For those who enjoyed Dodge City and Wild Bill, Tom Clavin’s latest is a must for your bookshelf.
