Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral

In this follow-up to Doc, Russell is on a mission: she will leave no stone unturned, no seemingly tangential character undeveloped, no political maneuver unexamined in order to chip away at the pristine image of Wyatt Earp, Western Law Man. Unlike Earp's Vendetta Ride, though, her motivation is not vindictive; instead, she uses what must have been a staggering amount of research for something nobler. She wants to reveal truth where it has been obfuscated for more than a century. Exposing consumption's crippling of alleged sharpshooter Doc Holliday, the sterility and addiction suffered by the virtually unknown Earp wife (or rather, "wives"), and even the ineptitude of President Chester Arthur's administration, Russell shows how the gunfight at the OK Corral is not the end of a hero's tale but just 30 terrible seconds in a decades-long, nationwide struggle to evolve out of ignorance into enlightenment.