The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

James Carlos Blake

Jan 2012 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

A stunning snapshot of the life of one of Texas’s most notorious outlaws

For his forty-two years on this earth, John Wesley Hardin’s name was synonymous with outlaw. A killer at fifteen, in the next few years he became skilled enough with his pistols to back down Wild Bill Hickok in the street. By the time the law caught up with Hardin when he was twenty-five, he had killed as many as forty men and been shot so many times that, it was said, he carried a pound of lead in his flesh. In jail he became a scholar, studying law books until he won himself freedom, and afterwards he tried to lead an upright life. It was not to be. By the time he was killed in 1895, Hardin was an anachronism—the last true gunfighter of the Old West. In this volume, western master James Carlos Blake retells Hardin’s life, exposing the many different sides of the man who became a legend.

Ratings and reviews

i liked it n e wayz. peace love and light u dirty cops

About the author

James Carlos Blake (b. 1947) is one of America’s most highly regarded living authors of western fiction. He was born in Mexico, and his family moved regularly when he was a child, living in various towns along the border and coast before finally settling in Texas when Blake was six. After a stint in the army, Blake attended the University of South Florida and received a master’s degree from Bowling Green State University. He would later teach at both of these universities, but in 1997 he left teaching to write fulltime. Blake’s first novel, The Pistoleer, was published in 1995 to overwhelming acclaim. Its unusual format—with each chapter told from a different character’s perspective—caused critics to dub it an unusually promising debut. Since then Blake has written eight novels and one collection of stories, most of which are inspired by real-life characters from the American West. He lives and works in Arizona.