Tom Clavin brings to life another episode in the American Wild West during the late nineteenth century, this time focusing on the Daltons. The Last Outlaws deals with the Dalton gang (later becoming the Doolin-Dalton gang) that cut a reign of terror from Kansas and Oklahoma all the way to California. After the Civil War, these disaffected confederate soldiers became desperados, starting with horse thievery and moved hard core crime—and murder. The Dalton brothers (Bob, Gratton, and Emmett) along with an ever-changing string of gang members, held up trains and banks, culminating in their attempt in October 1892, to pull off two simultaneous bank robberies in Coffeyville. The townsfolk of the village came together spontaneously to defeat the gang, leaving only one brother alive.
Clavin deftly handles a huge cast of characters including the various gang members, their families, and the lawmen who tried to bring them down. He makes minor detours into the lives of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the Hole-in-the-Wall gang and other desperados. The book is well-researched and does a good job of capturing the milieu of the death of the Wild West.
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The Last Outlaws (St. Martin’s Press, November 7, 2023) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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You can read my review of Clavin’s Bandit Heaven here.
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