THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER"Tombstone is written in a distinctly American voice." -T.J. Stiles, The New York Times"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." -Associated Press The true story of the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, and the famous Battle at the OK Corral, by the New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City and Wild Bill.On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, eight men clashed in what would be known as the most famous shootout in American frontier history. Thirty bullets were exchanged in thirty seconds, killing three men and wounding three others.The fight sprang forth from a tense, hot summer. Cattle rustlers had been terrorizing the back country of Mexico and selling the livestock they stole to corrupt ranchers. The Mexican government built forts along the border to try to thwart American outlaws, while Arizona citizens became increasingly agitated. Rustlers, who became known as the cow-boys, began to kill each other as well as innocent citizens. That October, tensions boiled over with Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne confronting the Tombstone marshal, Virgil Earp, and the suddenly deputized Wyatt and Morgan Earp and shotgun-toting Doc Holliday.Bestselling author Tom Clavin peers behind decades of legend surrounding the story of Tombstone to reveal the true story of the drama and violence that made it famous. Tombstone also digs deep into the vendetta ride that followed the tragic gunfight, when Wyatt and Warren Earp and Holliday went vigilante to track down the likes of Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, and other cowboys who had cowardly gunned down his brothers. That "vendetta ride" would make the myth of Wyatt Earp complete and punctuate the struggle for power in the American frontier's last boom town.

Author's NotePrologueAct I: The Territory1. "Men of Restless Blood"2. "Sunlight Into Our Hearts"3. "I'll Get Every Son of a Bitch"4. "The Only Stone You'll Ever Find"Act II: The Brothers5. "Desperate Characters"6. "Three Peas in a Pod"7. "Nobody Much Like Him"8. "A City Upon a Hill"9. "You Will Have to Fight Anyway"10. "And Incredible Beauty"Act III: The Cowboys11. "Give Up That Pistol"12. "Very Lively Town"13. "Strike Up a Tune"14. "Dead When He Hit the Ground"15. "I Hold for Nobody!"16. "The Fury of the Flames"17. "Revenge Seems the Order of the Day"Act IV: The Gunfight18. "Rather Die Fighting"19. "Geronimo Is Coming!"20. "Kill Us or Be Killed"21. "Right Here, Right Now"22. "The Fight's Commenced"23. "It Had Come at Last"Act V: The Vendetta24. "It Was a Fight for Life"25. "A Smoldering Fire"26. "I'm Your Huckleberry"27. "A Bad Character Sent to Hell"28. "A Bloody, Wretched Business"29. "Armed to the Teeth"EpilogueAcknowledgmentsSelected Bibliography