Masterson (Wheeler Classics)

I really liked this book. I liked the way they had true facts about Bat Masterson mixed in with the story. Enjoyed it very much

This was an incredible read! It’s fiction but based on as much reality as the author could dig up. I was interested because I feel in love with the Bat Masterson television programs and had a ball watching them – he was such an honest law abiding person in a lawless frontier --- the story was sort of sad but the World that Bat and Emma traveled back into was not the world that they had lived in at all – some places didn’t want to know anything of the frontier so many were so industrialized --- I don’t believe he’d like our World of today at all --- with all the new contraptions etc. that have evolved! This was a wonderful, warm, learning story that I believe every little cowboy or girl of today would read with understanding!

Wheeler takes the reader on a journey crossing the United States from NYC to Hollywood from the point of view of the aging Western legend, Bat Masterson, who is dealing with the mythology that was the American West and the mythology of his own past. On the trip, we are led to learn of Wyatt Earp, his brothers, Doc Holliday and a host of other western figures who had figured in Masterson's life. Good stuff, especially for Western novel readers.

I had never read anything by Richard S. Wheeler until I picked up a copy of Goldfield in a used book shop. Since I enjoyed that book so much, I ordered Masterson. The two books are entirely different. Goldfield is about a mining town and has several subplots involving various characters. Masterson has one central character and is told in the first person. It’s more of an introspective look at the man’s life and legend.I would have rated Goldfield a 5 and Masterson a 4. But I had to nock down Masterson for the bad binding of the book. It’s a trade paperback and several pages pulled loose from the binding as I read it.

It's a rare treat to walk through an actual person's mind in such a convincing book as "Masterson". I only knew of Bat Masterson as the foppish crime-solver from the TV series, and this Masterson is a much more human and plausible man. This is a Western hero I could believe in. It's a grand, sad journey he and his lady take in this book. His life, "past" and "present", and the historic settings through which he travels were obviously well researched. Are there any missteps here? Only Bat could tell us. I think it happened just as Wheeler says.

I really enjoyed this novel.I have read a lot of stuff on the Old West ;both fact[?] and fiction. As for fiction I like Longarm and Trailsman.However part of the fascination is trying to sort out which is which.The author takes a novel approach in trying to do this and produces a very readible and convincing book.The list of books at the end is appreciated;thanks.

A unique look at how the frontier created legends and the way those heroes lived after its passing. Thr story begins in the fall of 1919. Bat Masterson, once famous as a dapper lawman and gunfighter, has worked as a sports columnist for a New York newspaper for several years. (If you can find them, read some of his columns on prizefights - he was not shy in offering his honest, blunt views.) Having long resented the liberties taken with his life by dime novelists, Masterson now decides to take his wife west. By visiting Dodge City, going through Colorado and on to Los Angeles, Masterson sees how the West has changed (he's not happy the the area led the way in making Prohibition the law of the land) and what it means to him as an older man. Wheeler was a prolific writer of westerns; here he finds a subject worthy of his own understanding of frontier celebrity. While not a real page-turner, the book finds a compelling subject and takes him on a fascinating voyage to find himself.

Good but same story in every town