SOME TRUE TALES of the Old West are so fascinating that they deserve to be told by fresh storytellers. Although there is no shortage of books on the friendship between lawman Wyatt Earp and dentist-turned-gambler Doc Holliday—and what they did at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881—Brothers of the Gun (Dutton) by Mark Lee Gardner is the latest must-read on the subject. The dual biography starts with the men’s respective origins in Illinois and Georgia; by the time the two first meet in Dodge City, the well-paced story is rollicking, peppered with bullies and bullets. As the duo roams westward, forging their legend, local readers will relish Earp and Holliday cameos in Albuquerque, Silver City, and on the Las Vegas Plaza.