Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1572890 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 824 pages

Customer Reviews

HE THOUGHT HE WAS WYATT (AT LEAST WHEN HE WAS DRUNK)
I have often kidded Michael Hickey and Lee Silva about their works passing the test for weight and density. Perhaps we need a word for this sort of publication and I suggest "bulkritude."
Lots of broad brush general history of interest, but as Bruce Trinque comments in another of his "right on" views, accepting the logic of this book would be a helluva pill to swallow.
If you do buy it, ask the publisher to send along with it a scrap of carpet such as used traditionally in the American past to wrap around bricks to use as doorstops. He is a good fellow and might actually send one. Don't expect a Bokara, however.

Speculative conspiracy theory, not history
In this gargantuan volume, Michael Hickey presents a conspiracy theory in the aftermath of the death of Warren Earp (Wyatt's brother) that would perhaps do credit to a JFK assasination buff, but hardly qualifies as good history. To accept his conclusions, in my opinion, requires the reader to discard logic and common sense. There is a wealth of primary source material presented, and for that I will give the book two stars, but I do not advocate that anyone read this book in the expectation of learning the truth.

Conspiracy fantasy masquerading as history
Warren Earp, by all contemporary accounts a rather unlikable and violent drunk, was killed in a 1900 Arizona saloon brawl, or at least that is the conventional version of history. Michael Hickey tells a very different and impossibly convoluted story. An avowed worshipper of the Earps, he wants his work to be considered the vindicating and definitive "Warren" commission investigation into the death of Wyatt's younger brother. But, unlike the real Commission's investigation into the death of John Kennedy, Hickey presupposes a hidden second gunman, and that the man known to have killed Warren Earp did not actually shoot, but was a willing patsy in a conspiracy that then put the smoking gun in his hand. If that does not stretch the intelligent reader's credulity to the limit, the author tops it by claiming that all the witnesses to Earp's death, as well as the officials investigating it, were involved in the conspiracy. But, wait, there's more. Wyatt Earp and his allies were so clever that they masterfully avenged Warren's death by rubbing out all the "bad" guys, and left not a single trace of their second "vendetta ride."

Don't expect a clear narrative of events around 1900, or even anything of an investigation into the life and character of Warren Earp. Rather, settle down for a long-winded and disjointed assemblage of working notes, correspondence and conversations about Hickey's tortuous quest to prove his theory almost a century later. The gargantuan opus can be something of a page-turner if you can't wait for the next twist of Hickey's fevered imagination as he libelously smears many people who had nothing to do with Earp's death.

This Oliver Stone wannabe is no historian or detective. Violating basic principles of research and logic, Hickey places more importance on belated and uninformed rants of popular writers and on distorted memories of gossip than he does on the testimony of Earp's contemporaries who actually knew something. The sheer amount of data he has accumulated can be misleading. Some assertions are demonstrably wrong while most are quite irrelevant to his thesis. The "evidence" often consists of nothing more than suspects' guilt of association for having been born in the same state. It is no spoiler to cut to the chase on page 694, where Hickey admits he has rushed into print with only "circumstantial evidence." Worse, he fails to locate relevant sources that others before him had little trouble finding, and then amusingly speculates about the probable content and hidden meaning of those untapped sources. Even the author's inability to locate proof for his theories constitutes other peoples' conspiracies to hide the evidence. When one of his researchers has difficulty photographing the grave of one of the suspects, Hickey sees ghosts deliberately hampering his quest for the "truth." This conspiracy theorist evidently does not want to be confused by facts. But even if Hickey's amateur hand obscures important clues that contradict his preconceptions, much of the truth about Earp's death can be found buried in these pages thanks to the author's penchant for reproducing many sources verbatim.

This 824-page self-published personal fantasy masquerading as documented history should have been judiciously edited into 20 pages of fiction. That might then have had the makings of a movie script that would exploit holes in the historical record to tantalize the viewer with a ripping good yarn. On second thought, movies are where most Americans learn "history," and more distortions of reality enrich nobody but the perpetrators.

Hardcore Earpiana addicts will want this hefty tome as coffee table decoration. But, as Clifford Stoll has sagely noted, data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, and understanding is not wisdom. Hickey's magnum opus does not even cross the data threshold, so other would-be purchasers should consider a less expensive and more functional doorstop.