The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday by David Corbett

If there is one thing I’ve gathered from experience, whether during the war or at Mother’s sickbed or out here in the railheads and cow towns, it is that there is nothing to distinguish a good life from a bad life, there is just life, and it must be lived. I cannot help at times but wonder if your Romanist faith is not a kind of armor against the terrible ambiguities of a life lived simply, fully, honestly, without pretense of nobility or purpose. When I lingered near death, and felt the immanent, infinite coldness entering my core, I found no solace whatsoever in pieties. Rather, what comfort came to me arrived solely through the relentless will to defy the odds and continue the meager reckless enterprise of my existence.

This novel is one curious amalgamation of neo-Western, court procedural, treatise on art forgery, historical reconstruction and Lee Child style shoot ‘em up.

Corbett clearly has skill and the research is top-notch but, for this reader, not all elements hold water, I found the extended action set-pieces a bit tedious, akin to reading a description of a John Wick film rather than the simple pleasure of viewing one.

A novel composed with such skill does not deserve a simple cast-off review and I wager mileage will vary for other readers, but while briskly paced I found it harder and harder to maintain interest as it went along.