The Earps in childhood

When I base characters on real people, I pay particular attention to their childhood. I believe our first fourteen years are the basis of much of what comes afterward. We build on a solid foundation, or we spend years trying to repair the damage, or we wander in the...

Jeremy Renner on the DOC/EPITAPH project

Jeremy Renner recently commented on playing Doc in the Palmstar Production based on my two novels, Doc and Epitaph. “I’ve been looking at doing a Doc Holliday origin story as a series for Netflix or Amazon.” Although still in early stages, his focus for it seems...

Tuberculosis and 19th Century Fashions

A while back, I posted about what might well be a photograph of Doc Holliday taken shortly before his death from tuberculosis. Whoever that poor soul really was, his neck is neatly wrapped in white cloth. It was not a fashion statement; it was a bandage. It covered...

For those who watched “Murder of a President” on PBS

Here’s the passage from Epitaph with Doc Holliday’s observation of the election of 1880, which brought James A. Garfield to the White House. Hundreds of delegates and thousands of observers crammed into Chicago’s many-windowed Industrial Exposition...