WILD BILL HICKOK: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History






Published by Hourly History in November of 2024.

Hourly History offers free e-books every week. Each of the books take about an hour to read and the smaller topics are really quite good. The series is good for things you want to know more about, but you don't want to read a 400 page book on the topic.

There is probably a large book about Wild Bill Hickock (1839-1876), but I don't want to read it. This length made for a perfectly enjoyable and interesting read.

Hickock started out fighting in the pre-Civil War Bleeding Kansas conflict on the anti-slavery side, worked as a guide, a hunter, a sheriff, and eventually ended up being shut in the back of the head while playing poker in Deadwood in the Dakota Territory by a man who was too afraid to fight Hickock in a duel.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Wild Bill Hickock: A Life from Beginning to End. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

THE WATCHMAN (Elvis Cole/Joe Pike 11) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

Image
Published in 2008 by Brilliance Audio. Read by James Daniels. Duration: 7 hours, 52 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis Usually, books in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series focus on Elvis. Elvis is a private detective with a smart mouth. He catches a case, does some digging and his partner, tough guy Joe Pike, comes in when things get hairy. It's an old formula. You see it in Perry Mason, the Spenser series, and even Magnum, PI because it works.  The Watchman is different. It starts with Joe Pike. He is on the run with a girl and a hit squad is after them. Joe Pike is asked to babysit a witness because a Mexican drug lord wants her dead. Multiple hit teams have come after her. What makes it more complicated is that she is very rich and she has makes the newspapers regularly for being a party girl. If you were alive pre-social media, think Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.  Joe is using every trick he has and barely escaping. He reaches out to Elvis Cole for some detective and logistical...
Read more

MILDRED (short story) (kindle) by Sean Ryan O'Reilly

Image
Published in 2014 by RSO Publications. The short story Mildred has a tone and plot that is reminiscent of a Stephen King story. Certainly, O'Reilly could have stretched this 42 page short story (novelette) out a bit more like Stephen King would have, adding much more detail but not have really adding much to the story itself.  Instead, O'Reilly goes for a much quicker, more minimalist approach, letting the reader try to figure out what is going on while a creepy vibe and sense of dread build. The story begins with a family fight between an aunt who is a realtor (Denise) and her niece (Josephine). It turns out that the aunt has convinced her niece to invest in a shady business deal and Josephine has decided to cash out by just taking one of her aunt's homes. This home is crammed full of consumer products. Josephine clears out a space and sets up housekeeping. When she discovers the diary of the former owner of the house she learns that her aunt ...
Read more

BATMAN - ONE BAD DAY: CLAYFACE (graphic novel) by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing

Image
Published by DC Comics in 2023. Written by Collin Keely and Jackson Lanzing. Art by Xermánico and Romulo Fajardo, Jr. Synopsis Clayface has moved away from Gotham City and has gone to Hollywood to be a movie star. The original Clayface character from 1940 comic where he premiered was a B movie actor named Basil Karlo. Basil Karlo is working as a waiter in Batman - One Bad Day: Clayface while trying to make it big in Hollywood. He's diligent about everything, but he does not have a light comic touch that is called for in romantic comedies. His roommate does, however. When they both read for the same part it becomes a problem when the roommate gets the part and Basil Karlo doesn't. Being Clayface means you can make yourself look like anyone - at least for a little while. Clayface kills the roommate and then assumes his shape so he can get his big Hollywood break. And then one murder leads to another. And another. And another. And another and so on. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne is in t...
Read more

WELCOMING the STRANGER: JUSTICE, COMPASSION, and TRUTH in the IMMIGRATION DEBATE by Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang

Image
Published in 2018 by IVP. A few years ago I was determined to learn a lot about immigration in the United States. I bought Welcoming the Stranger during that time, but I put it aside because the other books I had read were, to put it simply, not good.  So, this book went into the dreaded to-be-read pile, and it might have stayed there forever except for the reelection of President Trump. His actions to fight immigration of just about any sort prompted me to pick up this book and learn a little more about the immigration system. Even though this book was written in 2018, just 7 years ago, some parts of it felt hopelessly out of date thanks to Trump's relentless push against so many norms, rules, and laws in 2025 when it comes to immigration.  The basics are there, however, so the book does have value as a primer on immigration. But, the book is more than that - it is a Christian look at this issue because the authors work for World Relief , a Christian organization that works ...
Read more

THE PRICE YOU PAY (Peter Ash #8) (audiobook) by Nick Petrie

Image
Published in 2024 by Penguin Audio. Read by Stephen Mendel. Duration: 13 hours, 18 minutes, Unabridged. Almost every book of this series follows this model: 1) Peter Ash, a retired Marine, travels the backroads of America in an effort to deal with his PTSD from his service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Peter is more than competent in a fight and he is much smarter than the average wandering do-gooder. Despite these advantages, he eventually runs into a person that needs so much help that even Peter can't take care of it.  2) At that point he calls his friend and business partner Lewis for backup.  Lewis is also a former soldier, but his post-Army life is much more checkered. The details have always been been kept shrouded in mystery, but everyone knows that it was a criminal enterprise.  3) Lewis shows up with a whole lot of guns and his special talents for mayhem and destruction. Peter and Lewis save the day going forth and kicking butt. ***** It's a formula, but I like the f...
Read more

BLOOD MONEY: A LUCKY DEY THRILLER (audiobook) by Doug Richardson

Image
Published in 2019 by Velvet Elvis Entertainment. Read by Tim DeKay. Duration: 9 hours, 35 minutes. Unabridged Synopsis: On a lonely country road in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, a police officer is murdered while he is trying to help 2 crash victims. The police officer is the little brother of a hard-charging officer named Lucky Dey and Lucky is determined to get the murderer at all costs. They determine that the driver of a black semi hauling a matching black refrigerated trailer is probably the murderer. The evidence points towards it heading to Los Angeles. Lucky rolls into down at 100+ MPH, meets up with a contact/babysitter from LAPD and they soon figure out that this is even more of a mess than they thought it was... My review: The general idea of Blood Money was good, but just too busy. I think the story was told through at least eight different characters and that just diffused the action and drive of the story too much. On top of that, almost none of the characters are l...
Read more

THE RUNNING MAN by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman

Image
Originally published in 1982. Published in 2010 by Simon and Schuster. Read by Kevin Kenerly. Duration: 7 hours, 42 minutes. Unabridged. Stephen King's long and storied career is legendary. At this point, he has 61 novels, including 7 written under the pen name Richard Bachman. At first, he wrote books under the Bachman pen name because the publishing industry had a rule of thumb - no more than one book per year per author. Clearly, with a prolific author like Stephen King that rule would be problematic. This edition of The Running Man includes an essay by Stephen King that talks about Richard Bachman and his relationship with his pen name. The Bachman books have a darker tone than the Stephen King books by design. The Running Man has a particularly dark tone. Set in 2025 in an alternate history (even though it was written in 1982, it refers to things in 1978 that did not happen) in which America has become a corporate oligarchy. The economy is ruled by a company called Genera...
Read more

The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern by Victor Davis Hanson

Image
Excellent Series of Essays Victor Davis Hanson's The Father of Us All is an excellent series of essays about war - why we fight, how we fight, the compromises societies make with themselves as they fight, what causes some countries to keep fighting while others grow weary of it, what types of societies deal best with the stresses of war, the future of war and a look at the American way of waging war. Many of these essays have been previously published (or substantial parts of them) in magazines but Hanson has re-worked and amplified them. I only recognized one essay and the new version was longer and more substantive. Hanson is a brilliant essayist - he expands the reader's point of view without talking down to him. Instead, in plain language he discusses large ideas and, happily, he includes plenty of references to other authors and other books that he has found interesting and informative. Reading Hanson is liking talking to an old friend who not only informs, he also ...
Read more

BLUE MOON (Jack Reacher #24) (audiobook) by Lee Child

Image
Published by Random House Audio in October of 2019. Read by Scott Brick. Duration: 11 hours, 21 minutes. Unabridged. In Blue Moon , Jack Reacher is traveling by bus when he notices a sleeping old man with a bank envelope full of cash falling out of his pocket. He also notices that another man has noticed the money and clearly wants to steal it. When the old man and the potential thief get off of the bus in an unfamiliar city, Reacher follows and intervenes. But, as always seems to happen, Reacher gets involved in something deeper. This time around it is really bad... This was an entertaining audiobook. Scott Brick has replaced Dick Hill as the voice of Jack Reacher and I am still getting used to that because I am a major fan of Dick Hill. But, Scott Brick is growing on me. This was a much bloodier Reacher novel than most. Reacher has never had a problem with violence, but in this novel he takes it to a new level. It seemed out of character to me. Still, I rate this book 4 stars out of ...
Read more

BENITO MUSSOLINI: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (World War 2 Biographies) (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
  Published by Hourly History in 2017. Mussolini and Hitler in 1937. Nowadays, Benito Mussolini is best known as Hitler's far lesser partner in the Pact of Steel (signed in 1939), the formal treaty of the Axis Powers. He is often seen as the weaker partner that may very well have drug the entire alliance down due to incompetence.  But, back when Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, he was seen, by some, as the vanguard of the future of political organization in Europe - a movement called fascism . He was at least begrudgingly admired by people all around the world.  This is, perhaps, the most balanced of all of the Hourly History biographies. I was mostly interested in a brief look at how Mussolini came to power and what he did once in power. The biography was a little skimpy on Mussolini's years in power before World War II and it won't please students of the war to see how little they discuss of his wartime policies and decisions. That being said, I thought this was a...
Read more