The author never intended to write about Wyatt Earp or the Tombstone saga. What could be learned from another retelling of that old chestnut? New revelations, like the ""Otero Letter,"" alter traditional interpretations of Earp's sanguinary campaign as a personal feud ala western fiction. It was a seek and destroy mission sanctioned by the attorney-general, the United States marshal and governor of Arizona Territory, following a year of corrupt law enforcement in league with the Cow-boys' expanded livestock raids, stagecoach holdups, and other atrocities. This work is divided into three sections. The first part establishes the major players prior to converging on Tombstone. Part two recaps the Earp path to confrontation via a monthly/daily account of the 18-months culminating with the final bloody field action. Part three covers the provenance, authenticity and credibility of the ""Otero Letter;"" a detailed examination of each statement in the letter including the shotgun dual between Wyatt Earp and Curly Bill; the split between Earp and Holliday; sanctuary for the Earp posse in Colorado and Holliday's extradition fight; Earp's covert Phase II assault resulting in Johnny Ringo's death; the controversial courtship and marriage of Earp and Josephine Marcus; and the author's concluding observations.

This is the first biography of the legendary officer Cipriano Baca, scion of a prestigious Spanish lineage tracing their heritage to the first settlers in Nuevo Mexico. Baca was well educated and a successful businessman before beginning a 52-year career as a peace officer. Tenderhearted by nature, he could be cold as steel, even, lethal, doing his duty. He was a man of honor and principle in an age of greed and selfishness. Cipriano was first an undercover range detective, next a deputy sheriff and a deputy U.S. marshal. In 1901, the territorial governor appointed Baca the first sheriff of the newly formed Luna County, and in 1905, the state governor selected him as the first man to head New Mexico's newly established territorial rangers. Written with the full cooperation of the Baca family and utilising public and private records, this biography presents the truth about a complicated man. One revelation: Baca discovered who was the real killer of Pat Garrett and the motive behind the murder.

This book describes the birth of the New Mexico Mounted Police in 1905 and tells the stories of the members of the original Mounties, starting with their first captain, John F. Fullerton. It details the many challenges of their first year of operation and offers an inside look at a territorial police force in action. Information drawn from personal interviews with ranger family members, Fullerton's personal papers and official Mounted Police records brings a wealth of detail to this story from New Mexico's rich history.

In the summer of 1930, two federal prohibition agents were murdered. The first died in a hail of buckshot on a dark street in Aguilar, Colorado. Six weeks later, the second agent and his vehicle disappeared on a sunny afternoon along a New Mexico state highway south of Raton. These events occurred during the era when the government legislated a ban on alcohol manufacture, distribution, and sales within the United States. During their 50-year search, the authors sought answers to why no one was ever prosecuted for these crimes. This is the first book to correlate the two murders, identify how and why they occurred, name the parties involved and the roles they played. The authors interviewed many individuals associated with the events and discovered a trove of National Archives files containing incident reports, suspect interview notes, the dead agents' daily activity logs and their personnel files. Building upon this base, they located the remaining documents generated by state and local law enforcement officers and additionally data mined private and public contemporary newspaper collections. The shadows along the trail lift as the light of truth is shown upon this mystery. Two federal agents can now rest in peace.