I read all of Tom Clavin's books and this is just another wonderful entry about the end of the Wild West. I'm not going to complicate this review because whether or not this book is for you is very simple.

When Clavin writes about the Wild West, there is going to be some guaranteed elements. First, sardonic wit. Clavin will not let a good zinger go by. If there is a dark joke to make about a guy's nickname ending up being the way he dies, then Clavin will say it.

Second, there are a lot of characters. Clavin can not and will not let a good story go by. Sure, the character may show up for a few pages and disappear forever but this is about entertainment. Clavin has gathered you around the fire to tell you stories not just a single story. Admittedly, I usually ding books for having too many characters, but when it is done well and brings more color to the book, I not only let it slide but thoroughly enjoy it.

Finally, while it may seem the narrative jumps around, there is always a larger point being made in the narrative. Yes, it seems like the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are the main story, but it is really about the end of the Wild West. This book is another look at the how and why the outlaws couldn't go on forever both literally and figuratively. If you like Clavin's work, this is just another must read.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and St. Martin's Press.)

Just like all of the other books I’ve read by Tom Clavin, Bandit Heaven is incredibly interesting and a rip-roaring ride through the Wild West from its heyday to its gradually domesticated end. Never is this more poignant than in this book when Wild Bunch members Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid go from being on the lam in primitive places in Bandit Heaven and the Outlaw Trail out west to living it up on the leading edge of modernity in New York City. Like the preceding solo effort from Clavin, The Last Outlaws, Bandit Heaven does suffer some in my opinion of being too comprehensive. A multitude of rustlers, thieves and bandits can be summed up within a paragraph or two in almost every chapter, creating a dizzying list that is impossible to keep up with. While it is interesting, the book would be easier to follow if the majority of it was focused on the Wild Bunch core members and the law enforcement determined to catch them. The last few chapters do have this more narrowed focus, and they’re much easier to follow along with. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I spend my reading/listening time with mysteries, biographies, and historical nonfiction. So Tom Calvin’s “Bandit Heaven” falls under the “historical nonfiction” category. And it’s quite a well-written story about the American Wild West. I learned a whole lot about the real history of the west and many of its famous (infamous!) outlaws…with a smattering about the so-called “good guys.” Most interesting, the good guys were very much like the bad guys, and in many cases the good guys were oftentimes also the bad guys. Very entertaining read for which I am grateful to NetGalley for the opportunity to read Mr. Clavin’s book.

Another fascinating book by Clavin. This author never fails to find interesting tales of our wild west past. The book is full of fascinating details about the last days of the outlaw caste that haunted the westerns towns well into the 20rh century. I have read all his books and they are all well worth reading.

If you've read any of Tom Clavin's books, you know you get a detailed history of a specific time in history, and Bandit Heaven doesn't disappoint. "Robbers Roost, Brown’s Hole, and Hole in the Wall were three hideouts that collectively were known to outlaws as “Bandit Heaven.” This book details quite a few outlaw gangs back in the 1880s and 1890s, when outlaw gangs were starting to disappear as advancements were made in transportation and communication. As usual with Tom Clavin's books, the level of detail is almost overwhelming, but he tells the old tales in such a way that you don't even realize h0w much you're taking in. If you love learning about the old west, in particular the outlaws and bandits, you are going to love Bandit Heaven. I know I did.

5/5 stars.

*** I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Tom Clavin for the opportunity to read and review Bandit Heaven.

This book is about the various versions of the Hole In The Wall Gangs, others who used the hideout and the lawmen who pursued them. The primary focus off and on throughout the book is on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as they are the most recognizable names thanks to the movie of the same name. As with the author’s other books, this is an interesting read for those who are interested in the history of the american west.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog.

Tom Clavin's talents as a historian are his ability to relate factual material in a very readable anecdotal form, to tie together a sprawling subject into a cohesive narrative, and to place the the events into the broader context of history. All three of these are in display in <i>Bandit Heaven</i> as Clavin focuses on the importance of the getaways and hideouts to bandits of the Wild West, converging on the Wild Bunch led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. As telegraph communication and population growth reduced the ability of outlaws to flee the scene of the crime and lay low, banditry became rather unhealthy--as attested by the ends of most of the unsavory-yet-mythic bank and train robbers in this volume.

<i>Bandit Heaven</i> sprawls in geographic range, timeline, and number of personalities, which at times was difficult to keep up with as a reader, but it is necessary to convey the narrative Clavin tells. It ultimately works thanks to the author's logical divisions of the subject matter into easily consumed chapters that encapsulate one facet or advance the central threads of the narrative in easily readable fashion. This book is both entertaining and thought-provoking, both satisfying me in its coverage and whetting the appetite for more about the subject matter.

Appreciation to the author, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Robbers Roost, Brown’s Hole, and Hole-in-the-Wall were three hideouts that collectively were known to outlaws as “Bandit Heaven.” During the 1880s and ‘90s these remote locations in Wyoming and Utah harbored hundreds of train and bank robbers, horse and cattle thieves, the occasional killer, and anyone else with a price on his head. Bandit Heaven is a thrilling read, filled with action, indelible characters, and some poignance for the true end of the Wild West outlaw.

Honestly, couldn't finish this. The narrative was just too scattered, too many minor characters running around stealing cattle. I like the author, but this book just wasn't for me.

A look at the brief 'golden age' of robbers and outlaws of the wild west. Fleeting in time, but made immortal by the countless legends and tales that would grow out the exploits. A very worthwhile read.

4.5 rounded to 5

Clavin really knows his material, and he writes so engagingly that I sometimes forgot I was reading a historical account, as he evokes the various outlaws he follows, most to their unsavory ends. I really enjoy his style.

Framing this look at the waning of the "Old West" in particular the outlaws who preyed on banks, railroads, ranchers, and everyone else. was the tale of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I've never had any interest in those two, as I found the film dull when I saw it at twenty years old (hearing yet another maundering tweedle of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" used to drive me right out of a room) so I was surprised to find out that as outlaws go, these two were not all that bad. There were far worse ones, some of them with whom the two joined up now and then.

Mostly I found the scant facts about "Ethel"--the woman of many names with whom the Sundance Kid partnered for a time, till she'd had enough--was surprisingly interesting. I'd found the actor in the film so dull that it had never occurred to me that this person was even more interesting than the two guys, who were mainly famous for being somewhat stylish in how they took others' belongings.

The frame mostly worked--except that it turns out that really there is nothing for certain known about what happened to the two, down in South America. If they were actually there. Another small problem in the last third was that Clavin sometimes told us the ends of some of the outlaws and the lawmen who chased them, then picked up their stories from another angle--and they were suddenly alive again, confusing me a bit as the cast was so large.

But those are small quibbles. I learned a lot, and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

Tom Clavin has done it again with another great work on the American West! This was a great book on the smaller outlaws who tried to stake their claim to fame in the closing chapters of the American West.

I very much enjoyed the time period and the story as a whole, but there were so many characters to keep up with that you really didn't get a feel for any of them in detail.

The middle kind of lagged for me but the last third of the book became very interesting again and I was captivated through to the end. I liked that the author followed the outlaws til they met their end as well as the lawmen who had pursued them. Their hideouts in different locations was interesting but again, not a lot of detail.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book, I did learn some things I didn't know about some of the infamous outlaws.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for inviting me to read this draft in exchange for a review. I'm a little undecided about this book. Overall I enjoyed it and learned a lot more about the Wild Bunch than I knew before, but I'm still a bit disappointed as well. For a book about the Hole-in-the-wall it really didn't provide a great deal of information about the place. and what it was like for those living there. And while I learned a little about the various members of the Wild Bunch, it was a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none. If you're looking for a general study of the gang, it's members and their exploits, then this is the book for you. It covers all of the gang members, as well as the lawmen trailing them, and the people associated with both. It provides capsule histories of them all, some with more detail than others. But if you are looking for a real biography of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, etc. you should probably look elsewhere if you want more detail. What it does well is to provide a general history of the area known as Robbers Roost and the Hole in the Wall and of the Wild Bunch and the lawmen hunting them, then you might want to find some of the biographies of the various characters as listed in the bibliography for a more thorough look at the individuals of interest to you. For someone like myself, who did not know much about the gang know collectively as the Wild Bunch, I found it very helpful and worth the read.