No outlaw typifies America’s mythic Wild West more than Billy the Kid. To Hell on a Fast Horse by Mark Lee Gardner is the riveting true tale of Sheriff Pat Garrett’s thrilling, break-neck chase in pursuit of the notorious bandit. David Dary calls To Hell on a Fast Horse, “A masterpiece,” and Robert M. Utley calls it, “Superb narrative history.” This is spellbinding historical adventure at its … historical adventure at its very best, recalling James Swanson’s New York Times bestseller Manhunt—about the search for Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth—as it fills in with fascinating detail the story director Sam Peckinpah brought to the screen in his classic film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
“So richly detailed, you can almost smell the gunsmoke and the sweat of the saddles. ”
—Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers
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I like this writer’s style of historical fiction. He keeps the narrative flowing without bogging down in too many details. I enjoyed this book.
Perhaps I should be embarrassed to admit this, but I was only vaguely family with Billy the Kid, and I’d never heard of Pat Garrett before I read this book – which I picked up at the library entirely because of the title. That I quickly discovered it was set in New Mexico, which I’ve come to believe is one of the most beautiful, yet underrated, parts of this country, was the icing on the cake. (I’ve included a couple of pictures below in an attempt to show you what I mean.)
As in Dick Kreck’s Hell on Wheels – hell, it seems, being a very common theme in books about the American West of yesteryear – Mark Lee Gardner draws his reader into a time and place that has entirely vanished, except in the collective imagination. Outlaws were common then, every man – and not too few women – packed at least one weapon at all times and gambling, liquor, and errant (to say nothing of well-aimed) shots were entirely commonplace. Cattle rustling was rather an accepted risk, and Billy the Kid and his friends might have continued merrily along, stealing a horse here and a heifer there, if it weren’t for the fact that two of the men who died at their hands were Sheriff William Brady and his deputy, William Hindman. (As Gardner notes, no one, including the US District Attorney, appeared to be upset by the outcome of a previous murder trial for the death of one Andrew Roberts, which resulted in the entire case being dismissed.)
Even if they’d wanted to put an end to the Kid’s antics, no one had been able to arrest him for years, not until Pat Garrett accepted the challenge to become one of the first bounty hunters. It was Garrett who made possible the trial – both for Roberts and for Brady/Hindman – and whatever flaws he may have had personally (he himself having killed not too few men and being an inveterate gambler who once told Teddy Roosevelt, when asked about his gambling, “I know the difference between a straight and a flush, Mr. President, and in my section of the country, a man who doesn’t know this doesn’t know to keep the flies off in fly season.”) – he was also deeply committed to justice.
To Hell on a Fast Horse is full of outsize characters and improbable events. Yet, Gardner both brings them alive and brings them all down to size with pithy language that is worthy of the people and events he describes. When writing of a posse hunting for one of Billy’s outlaw friends, Gardner writes that he could not be caught: “Folliard’s horse was damn fast; outlaws generally try to steal the best horses,” and of the Kid himself, he “was not an early riser – long nights of women, dancing, and gambling will do that.”
To Hell on a Fast Horse should be required reading for anyone with even a hint of interest in the American West.
(This review was originally published at https://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2013/10/to-hell-on-fast-horse-billy-kid-pat.html)
Don’t recommend – too many dates and repetitious. More like a boring history from school than what I expected.
The author did much ground-breaking research into Pat Garrett in particular.
Great writing style combines with different perspective on a familiar, but nevertheless exciting, story to make for a very enjoyable read
I love old west character/legend history, which is sometimes difficult to obtain with any real accuracy. This book did a great job.
You can’t help but draw the conclusion that those who live by the sword will die by the sword.
This book brings great detail about the lives of Billy the Kid and Pat Garret, and the New Mexico history that comes with it. It’s a fascinating read.
The author made historical characters live again.
very informative on history of the Kid and Pat Garrett.
very different from the usual Billy The Kid stories,,,,
The book is very good and all the characters are well described. Not only did the story cover the two figures, as well as associated characters. But also gave a background for years after.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Easy read, informative and ‘definitely’ a thumbs up for me.
This was a very interesting and fun read about a world war I, flying ace from America.
Not a good read
It was a page-turner and gave an insight to the brutality and wildness of the old west.
easy to read. Not to many long worded descriptions
Entertaining and engaging about characters I knew little about; particularly marshall garrett. Life has its twists of fate. A tragic, but perhaps predictable outcome for a guy with the right cause -justice – but wrong motive – personal.
The allegedly accurate account of the twisted fates of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett.
Great insight into life in the SW frontier in the late 1700s, early 1800s
OK
Written from a law and order standpoint making Billy the Kid an outlaw on par with Jessie James and certainly he broke the law but the situation was not nearly as simple as the book portrays. There was a range war in Lincoln County where neither of the cattle barons were in the right. Both barons imported hired guns, many people died and when the dust settled the winner wrote the history. Billy was one of the few who were charged with a crime. This book was easy reading and simple- enjoyable as well, but showed a bias that was unfortunate.