Gary L. Roberts had to've been beating his head against the wall as he was writing this biography of the enigmatic Doc Holliday. There just isn't enough reliable information about the man to do a credible job.

Roberts starts out trying to figure out why Holliday left his dental practice in Georgia. It could have been because he shot a black man who had the audacity to use his swimming hole; it could have been because his cousin Mattie rejected him; it could have been because he was already a gambler with a terrible temper, or it could have been because he'd been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Roberts never does come to a firm conclusion.

Once Holliday moves to Texas, he becomes even harder to pin down. He's still working as a dentist, although he's gambling and drinking on the side. There's some conjecture that he may have stabbed a man during a card game, and he may have shot one or two people. Others sources argue that Holliday never killed anybody until he was involved in the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Around page 200 we finally come to the moment we've been waiting for, the famous Gunfight with the McLaurys and the Clantons. Roberts pretty much blames it on Ike Clanton who was on a two-day drunken binge, during which he'd been threatening to kill the Earps and Doc. The politics involved are much more interesting than the actual fight; the "Cow-boys" had been stealing cattle from Mexican ranchers, apparently in collusion with some of the big Arizona ranchers; some of them were also involved in stage robberies. The Earps and Holliday belonged to the gambler, gunfighter element. Doc also became a suspect in a stagecoach robbery during which a man was killed. This will all remind you of the election of 2004; there was a Swift Boat aura about the whole thing; the newspapers became involved also, with one taking the Cow-boy side and the other the Earps. During the gunfight at least one of the Cow-boys was unarmed and there was some disagreement as to whether the Cow-boys were trying to surrender.

The aftermath of the gunfight was almost as interesting as the actual gunplay. Virgil and Morgan Earp are ambushed, Morgan mortally. We get to meet the famous outlaws Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo, although once again Roberts doesn't have enough information to really make them come alive. As a matter of fact, suspect information doesn't stop Roberts at all. Quite a bit of what he has to say is based on Katie Elder's testimony, written when she was in her eighties. Her information is self-serving and somewhat delusional. She claims to have been married to Doc and at his side when he died, a contention Roberts is unable to prove. Roberts also cites the Wyatt Earp bios, also questionable for a number of reasons.

About the most painful part of the book is the epilogue. Roberts tries to sum up what he's just said, but he winds up only repeating himself, ad infinitum.