Billy the Kid: The Life Behind the Legend

This new, in-depth life of Henry McCarty, alias Billy Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, offers fresh perspectives, not only on the Lincoln County War and his boyhood in Silver City, New Mexico, but also on his Irish mother's origins and immigration to Indiana, his public-school education in Indianapolis, the McCarty family's moves to Wichita, Kansas, and Santa Fe, and his two-year outlaw adventures in Arizona.

For the first time, the whole person emerges. This biography brings together a huge am...