Briefly, I have been looking for a good non-Microsoft book that will offer a critical review of their latest OS - Win95. I had a client with a number of problems after an upgrade and I found the answers immediatly when I looked in the index. I then looked for other odd index topics and found reference to all of them. Other books, including MS Press titles, did not have reference or at least the depth that this book did. Buy it. Greg Barry

Given everything I've read about this book I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality and veracity of the narrative. I can understand how earlier reviewers taking Lake's claim to have received 100% of his facts from Earp, only from Earp, and entirely from Earp might have prejudiced people against Wyatt Earp, because there is a certain amount of "The tall lean figure of the fearless . . . " etc. The introduction puts this into context excellently well and I have no hesitation in recommending this book to people who are interested in the man and his era, with the proviso that they also read other texts (Sadie is referred two once or twice, never by name, during the portion of the narrative that covers Tombstone; Earp's marriage to and subsequent life with Josie (Sadie) Marcus Earp turns up only in the very last chapter -- on the next-to-last page, if I recall correctly). An excellent summarization of the Wyatt Earp mythos -- perhaps obviously so, since it is created with in large part creating that mythos (g). Still and all, not a book to be scorned, but to be read with a cross-reference or two at hand. The prose style holds up very well indeed.

I have a small library of Wyatt Earp books and Lake's book is always maligned by other Earp historians. No other book, however, seems to give us as much insight into Earp as Lake's. Sure, the facts are exaggerated and, in several instances, created out of whole cloth but more factual books also contain significant mistruths without ever giving us a feel for the man. Tefertiller's "Wyatt Earp" is indoubtedly better history but it isn't a better read. If you can only read one book about Earp, this may be the best one to read.

I read Lake's book as a child. Wyatt Earp became a real hero to me. Later I found there was much more to the story, and much less. Lake found Earp to be uncooperative. So much so he didn't publish this book until Wyatt had been dead three years. Great portions of it were complete fiction such as the episodes in Abilene, Ks. and the arrest of Ben Thompson which never happened. But then, Wyatt Earp never claimed that it had. Lake wanted to write a tale of the old west and in the late 1920's Wyatt was about the only survivor of that breed of men who lived by their wits and survived those days. Nevertheless this book is a lot of fun. If you want a true picture of Wyatt Earp check out the latest issue of American Heritage magazine (Mar/April, 1999). He was a controversial figure and in many ways an admirable one. The story of the making of the myth is as fascinating as the man.