The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

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unforgettable - Rated
Stunning book: the factual made mythic by imagination and the style of writing. Jesse James takes on a legendary aura - although the book is built around real events - and is stalked by a sense of approaching and inevitable disaster in the guise of the coward Robert Ford. Some tension is inevitably lost after Jesse's slaying, but the progress of Ford's life and death is fascinating also. I found this account totally convincing and moving also in its exploration of deceit and its consequences, and the slowly building tragedy that unfolds.The pages dealing with the morning of the murder and all the small details of that day are quite brilliant as time itself seems to fall into slow-motion. The book also fills in some of the details that are a little confusing in the fine film that grew from it... Wonderful.

BRILLIANT, POETIC WRITING. - Rated
I consider myself as an avid book reader to know a great book when I see one and the first two pages of this book are 'the best'first two pages I have ever read bar none, this book is all that the synopsis says it is, its probarably the greatest western ever written and I cannot wait to see the film.