This story is easy to read and amusingly told, with many witty turns of phrase, as we have come to expect from Donald Cotton. The tale is narrated by frontier journalist Ned Buntline, who is interviewing Doc Holliday in the terminal ward of a Sanatorium in 1887, immediately prior to his death. I was inspired by the novel to look into the real historical characters appearing in the story. The facts I unearthed proved to be somewhat thin on the ground in The Gunfighters. Pa Clanton was shot in August 1881 by Mexican bandits, two months before his appearance in Cotton’s story, which takes place in October 1881, so his participation was little short of miraculous. Phin Clanton was not present at the real gunfight, and actually lived on for more than twenty years. Johnny Ringo, it appears, actually committed suicide, following a bout of depression! It was interesting, too, to discover along the way that Kate Elder survived until 1940, and died in a rest home in her ninetieth year. Artistic license being what it is, Cotton puts across ideas regarding the shootout which have been popularised by movies. In mitigation, the true reasons for the confrontation at the O.K. Corral are, I gather, still somewhat hazy.