Billy the Kid:
The War for Lincoln County
DETAILS:
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Publication Date: October 15, 2024
Format: eBook
Length: 327 pgs.
Read Date: October 10-14, 2025
What’s Billy the Kid: The War for Lincoln County About?
I had to return the book, so I can’t remember the name our protagonist starts out with (it’s probably historical record, but who has time for that?). Anyway, the lad who will assume the name William H. Bonney is a petty, naive, juvenile delinquent who gets thrown in jail for a night in a proto-Scared Straight move. He finds a way to escape, and not knowing he was supposed to be taught a lesson, assumes he’s a wanted fugitive and starts to live up to that.
He gets a little better at being a criminal, practically inadvertently becoming a murderer—which really does make him a wanted fugitive—and then he falls in with a gang, and everything goes south.
Basically, it’s Billy the Kid’s origin story. From neglected step-son to notorious killer and bandit.
So, what did I think about Billy the Kid: The War for Lincoln County?
Coleman talks about wanting to fill in a blank in Billy’s career. It’s not a period that we get a lot about (Young Guns and Young Guns II notwithstanding), so it’s a fertile ground for this kind of fiction. As that kind of thing, I think it works pretty well.
It’d be easy to walk away from this novel with the idea that Billy is someone in desperate need of affection—particularly parental affection. Both a mother-figure and a strong father-figure are really what he seems to be looking for, and it’s not getting them (or having them taken away) leads to his life of crime.
It’d also be easy to walk away from this book with the idea that Billy is desperate for a name for himself and is really only motivated by whatever’s compelling him at the moment. He’s practically Id unbound, an example of what can happen when poor impulse control is combined with someone with decent talent with a gun, a little luck, and a lot of charm (and, perhaps, a pretty shaky morality).
I’m probably not noting and/or am forgetting a few other interpretations of Billy that Coleman gives us. Those are just the ones that stuck with me.
In the end, however, the upheaval in this part of New Mexico can’t be laid at the feet of Billy, his allies, or most of his enemies. It’s about money—and bigger money than any of the characters that we spend most of our time with can imagine. I’m not an expert in Westerns—I’ve only read a handful over the last couple of decades, and another handful before that—but I don’t get the impression that it’s a common enough theme. I’m glad to see Coleman do that here.
I enjoyed the book. As I recall, it’s a better—and grittier—read than McMurtry’s Billy the Kid book (and I read that a couple of times). It captures the hardship of the West as well as the dreams most people had of the glories they all sought (mostly futilely) there, too.
It’s not necessarily going to drive me to seek out more Westerns in general—it’ll make me inclined to grab Coleman’s next read, whatever genre that ends up being.
And yes, despite not having listened to the album in decades, I had Jon Bon Jovi’s Blaze of Glory album running through the back of my mind while reading this. Readers of a certain age: you might want to make it easier on yourself and just pull it up to listen to while you read.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
