R. Michael Wilson

The cover illustration is a little misleading since the caboose never figured in a train robbery.

This book is based on contemporary newspaper articles as well as a wide array of modern magazines that focus on the history of the western frontier. The author has a tendency not to specify the state or territory of a locale. He mentions that train robbery was not made a capital offense until near the close of the century and seems to treat it only as a federal matter. The book ends abruptly without a conclusion.

A recognizable studio photograph of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and three others is reproduced here. Four of the men died violent deaths. Although the author is thorough in covering the robbers' lives after the robberies, and states frankly if they disappeared without a trace, the fifth man in the photo, William Carver, was apparently forgotten by him.

One dichotomy went unexplained: many of the robbers once caught were willing to inform or testify against each other. On the other hand they all seemed mutually trusting when it came to burying the plunder with only one robber knowing the precise location.

The bibliography probably serves as a good starting point for those who wish to learn more.… (més)

This is a good scholarly effort, a sober and surprisingly detailed account of every known judicial execution in the territories of the "Wild Wild West" before they were made into states. However, I cannot fathom why it is priced on Amazon at nearly $100. It's a 220-page paperback, for crissake, and the author isn't even a college professor or anything. If you can find a used copy for cheap (and as of this writing, used copies on Amazon are priced at more than $50), or get it out of the library (that's what I did), by all means read it. But, with all due respect to Mr. Wilson, this isn't worth $95.

I did get one Executed Today entry out of it though: four guys hung for four different murders in three different towns in the territory of New Mexico all on the same day, September 24, 1986.… (més)