Bad Guys: True Stories of Legendary Gunslingers, Sidewinders, Fourflushers, Drygulchers, Bushwhackers, Freebooters, and Downrigh

The author of The Sweetwater Run rides onto familiar turf--the larger-than-life Wild West--with sharp-shootin' profiles of eight enticingly shady characters. Combining Texas-size doses of wit and the finesse of a seasoned storyteller, Glass explains that many of these legendary figures delighted in the exaggerated tales of their shoot-outs, swindlings and shameless thievery. Perhaps the most colorful portrait here is that of the tough-talking sure-shot and gambler Wild Bill Hickok, who always slept with his revolvers on and, as sheriff of Abilene, was known to offer troublemakers ""a choice between the train out of town and the cemetery in the morning."" The author laces his brief, biographical sketches with humorous tidbits: ""Between jobs,"" Glass says, deadpan, ""Jesse [James] sang in the choir at the Kearny Baptist Church."" The wily highwayman Black Bart, the ""scourge of Wells Fargo stagecoaches,"" planned and executed each robbery so carefully that he never had to fire a single shot during his entire career; and his much-dreaded ""gang,"" who allegedly ""backed him up,"" turned out to be painted broomsticks, strategically propped up. Two outlaw women also put in appearances--Calamity Jane and Belle Starr. The latter, after spending nine months in prison for stealing horses, invited all her pals from the jailhouse to come live with her ("" `I am a friend to any brave and gallant outlaw,' she proclaimed""). Glass's rough-hewn, grainy paintings serve up appropriately hyperbolic caricatures of these likable lawbreakers. When this kind of good writing happens to bad guys, even reluctant readers are sure to hightail it over to the bookshelf. Ages 8-12. (Oct.)