First published 2020
Charles Leerhsen cuts through Hollywood legend to uncover the real Butch Cassidy. The author examines how Robert Leroy Parker transformed from a dirt-poor Mormon ranch hand in Utah into the West's most famous bandit. Leerhsen reveals a man caught between honest cowboy work and criminal enterprise, stealing horses and cattle as small ranchers faced pressure from banks and railroad barons. The biography traces Cassidy's evolution from rustler to bank robber, showing how he built the Wild Bunch gang around clever escape tactics and a strict code against harming civilians. Leerhsen follows the outlaw's progression to train heists, the relentless Pinkerton pursuit that drove him south, and his final years with Harry Longabaugh in South America. The book strips away folklore to expose the economic forces that shaped both Cassidy's crimes and the vanishing frontier itself.
Genres: biography, historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, crime, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: criminal-enterprise, economic-pressures, vanishing-frontier
Setting: South America, Utah
Period: 19th-century, 20th-century
304 pages · Hardcover · Simon Schuster