Mary Doria Russell is the award-winning author of four previous bestsellers- The Sparrow, Children of God, A Thread of Grace, and Dreamers of the Day. Widely praised for her meticulous research, fine prose, and compelling narrative drive, Russell is uniquely suited to telling the story of the lawman Wyatt Earp and the dental surgeon John Henry Holliday. The daughter of Dick Doria, five-term sheriff of Dupage County, Illinois, Mary grew up with guns and cops but she also holds a doctorate in biological anthropology and taught gross anatomy at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dentistry before she left academe to write.
<p> If I had a six-shooter, I'd be firing it off in celebration of Doc . . . a deeply sympathetic, aggressively researched and wonderfully entertaining story. -- The Washington Post <br> A magnificent read . . . filled with action and humor yet philosophically rich and deeply moving . . . more realistic yet more riveting than any movie or TV western . . . Doc Holliday is the tragic hero in this terrific bio-epic. . . . Losing their mythic, heroic sheen, figures like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson become more captivating for their complexity. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) <br> Intense, individual characters, so fully realized that readers can almost physically touch them, fill the novel's pages . . . Doc's restrained but magnificent struggle to rise above the indignities of his disease and of life in Dodge . . . is one of the delights of this surprisingly luminous and elegant novel. --The Oregonian <br> <br> Fascinating . . . Russell's women are a match for any of the m