Johnny Ringo: Unknown Destiny

by Jason McCord

This book is a new novel about Johnny Ringo, the gunfighter many believe was the fastest gun that ever lived. His reputation with a gun first developed during a range war in Texas, the Mason County War. Ringo is best known for his confrontations with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday in Tombstone, Arizona. Those confrontations occurred both before and after the gunfight at the OK Corral. Many say that famous gunfight would never have happened if Ringo had been in town that day. It was widely known that Wyatt was deathly afraid of Ringo.

Hardcover

Published May 15, 2002

Reviews

[Stormrider · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made three good faith attempts to read this book. My interests run to history, historical fiction, memoir, fiction, military history, and westerns. This book fell into the fiction and western genres with hints of history and historical fiction. I wanted very much to like this book. I struggled through to page 83 on this last attempt with some skimming of the chapters that followed.
The writing was, at best, tedious. The author’s technique was to overwhelm the reader with pointless minutiae and dialogue in place of action. I appreciated his use of real time history and personalities in the early chapters, and I admired his imaginative twists of plot as the book progressed, but I just could not wade through text which was as dry as the deserts around Tombstone. I did fully appreciate his treatment of the Cowboys and the Earps. The Earps were thugs with badges and corruption was a way of life. Virgil was probably the most honest of the bunch. In my reading of history, Wyatt was a snake. Sorry Jason, but the book was just too slow. You also need to learn something about the realities of horseback travel, time and distance.