By Mark Lee Gardner
Release Date: November
11, 2025
Wyatt Earp and Doc
Holliday: Legendary gunfighters and friends who gained immortality because of a
thirty-second shootout near a livery stable called the O.K. Corral. Their
friendship actually began three years before that iconic 1881 gunfight, in the
rollicking cattle town of Dodge City. Wyatt, an assistant city marshal, was
surrounded by armed, belligerent cowboys. Doc saw Wyatt’s predicament from a
monte table in the Long Branch saloon and burst out the door with two leveled
revolvers shouting, “Throw up your hands!” The startled cowboys did, and Wyatt
and Doc led them off to jail. Wyatt credited Doc with saving his life, and thus
began their lasting—and curious—friendship.
In this illuminating
dual biography, the first about Earp and Holliday, the lives of these two men,
one a sometime lawman and the other a sometime dentist, are chronicled in a
swirling tableau of saloons, brothels, gambling dens, stage holdups, arrests,
manhunts, and revenge killings. And while there’s plenty of gunsmoke in this
saga, hero-worshipping won’t be found. Wyatt and Doc, just like anyone else
then and now, had their flaws and failings, and the unsavory parts of their
lives are here, too.
In Brothers of the
Gun, Old West authority Mark Lee Gardner reveals fresh information about
Wyatt’s and Doc’s early lives, their famous friendship, the O.K. Corral
gunfight, and Wyatt’s controversial “vendetta ride” following the assassination
of his brother Morgan. Drawing upon new research into diaries, letters, court
records, and contemporary newspaper reports, as well as firsthand observation
at several historic sites, this is the definitive book on Wyatt Earp, Doc
Holliday, and their enduring bond. Brothers of the Gun is edge-of-your-saddle nonfiction
storytelling at its best.
About the Author
Mark Lee Gardner is
a recipient of the Frank Waters Award for Literary Excellence. His bestselling
books, many of them award winners, include The Earth Is All That Lasts, Rough
Riders, Shot All To Hell, and To Hell on a Fast Horse. An authority
on the American West, Mark has appeared on numerous television programs and
other media, including the hit Netflix docuseries Wyatt Earp and the
Cowboy War. His YouTube video for WIRED’s Tech Support, where Mark answers
questions from the Internet about the Wild West, has received several million
views. A native of Missouri, he holds an MA in American studies from the
University of Wyoming and lives with his family at the foot of Pikes Peak.
ISBN 978-0593471890,
Dutton, © 2025, Hardcover, 336 Pages, Photographs & Illustrations, Resources,
End Notes & Index. $35.00. To Purchase the book click HERE.
