Bøker av Tom Clavin

"It is the early 19th century, and the land recently purchased by President Thomas Jefferson stretches west for thousands of miles. Who inhabits this vast new garden of Eden? What strange beasts and natural formations can be found? Thus was the birth of Manifest Destiny and the resulting bloody battles with Indigenous tribes encountered by white explorers. Also in this volatile mix are the grizzled fur trappers and mountain men, waging war against the Native American tribes whose lands they traverse. This is the setting of [this book], and the guide to this epic narrative is arguably America's greatest yet most unsung pathfinder, Jedediah Smith. His explorations into the forested frontiers on both sides of the Rocky Mountains and all the way to the West Coast would become the stuff of legend. Thanks to painstaking research and riveting writing, the story of the making of modern America is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and memorable men and women, settlers and Indigenous, who witnessed it"--

An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive.On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down tells this largely untold and riveting true story.Moser was just twenty-two years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser's journey into hell began.Moser and his courageous comrades from England, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere endured the most horrific conditions during their imprisonment... until the day the orders were issued by Hitler himself to execute them. Only a most desperate plan would save them.The page-turning momentum of Lightning Down is like that of a thriller, but the stories of imprisoned and brutalized airmen are true and told in unforgettable detail, led by the distinctly American voice of Joe Moser, who prays every day to be reunited with his family.Lightning Down is a can't-put-it-down inspiring saga of brave men confronting great evil and great odds against survival.

The definitive account of the Dalton Gang and the most brazen bank heist in history, by the multiple New York Times bestselling author. The Last Outlaws is the thrilling true story of the last of one of the greatest outlaw gang. The dreaded Dalton Gang consisted of three brothers and their rotating cast of colorful accomplices who saw themselves as descended from the legendary James brothers. They soon became legends themselves, beginning their career as common horse thieves before graduating to robbing banks and trains. On October 5, 1892, the Dalton Gang attempted their boldest and bloodiest raid yet: robbing two banks in broad daylight in Coffeyville, Kansas, simultaneously. As Grat, Bob, and Emmett Dalton and Bill Power and Dick Broadwell crossed the plaza to enter the two buildings, the outlaws were recognized by townspeople, who raised the alarm. Citizens armed themselves with shotguns and six-shooters from nearby hardware stores and were locked and loaded when the thieves emerged from the banks. The ensuing gun battle was a lead-filled firefight of epic proportions. As the smoke cleared, eight men lay dead--including four of the five members of the doomed Dalton Gang. For the first time ever, the full story of the Dalton Gang's life of crime, culminating in one of the Wild West's most violent events, are chronicled in detail--a last gruesome gasp of the age of gunfights.

The definitive true story of Wild Bill, the first lawman of the Wild West, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City.In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, MO-the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger in the Wild West.James Butler Hickock was known across the frontier as a soldier, Union spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor. He crossed paths with General Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody, as well as Ben Thompson and other young toughs gunning for the sheriff with the quickest draw west of the Mississippi.Wild Bill also fell in love-multiple times-before marrying the true love of his life, Agnes Lake, the impresario of a traveling circus. He would be buried however, next to fabled frontierswoman Calamity Jane.Even before his death, Wild Bill became a legend, with fiction sometimes supplanting fact in the stories that surfaced. Once, in a bar in Nebraska, he was confronted by four men, three of whom he killed in the ensuing gunfight. A famous Harper's Magazine article credited Hickok with slaying 10 men that day; by the 1870s, his career-long kill count was up to 100. The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Bestselling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story.

The untold Great American Story of three brothers—Joltin' Joe, Dom, and Vince DiMaggio—and the Great American Game, baseball, that would consume their livesMore than 350 sets of brothers have played in the major leagues since the 1870s. But few have had the skill, the charisma, or the success of the DiMaggio brothers. Joe DiMaggio, "The Yankee Clipper," is an American icon and one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century. Even his chief rival, Ted Williams, called him the greatest all-around player he ever saw.But two of Joe's brothers, also center fielders, were dynamic players in their own right. Dominic, affectionately known as "The Little Professor," was a seven-time All-Star who played for the Boston Red Sox from 1940 through 1953. He hit better than .300 five times in his career, finished with a .298 average, and like his big brother, rarely struck out. And Vince DiMaggio, the eldest, made two All-Star teams and in 1941 smacked 21 home runs and drove in 100 RBIs while playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates.In The DiMaggios, journalist Tom Clavin draws on a wealth of source materials, interviews with family members and teammates, and in-depth reporting to reveal how three kids from an immigrant family of eleven found their way to the upper echelons of American sports and popular culture. A vivid portrait of a family and the ways in which their shifting fortunes and status shaped their relationships, it is also a transporting exploration of an era and a culture, using baseball as a lens to view and understand American society in the twentieth century.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERTom Clavin's Follow Me to Hell is the explosive true story of how legendary Ranger Leander McNelly and his men brought justice to a lawless Texan frontier.In turbulent 1870s Texas, the revered and fearless Ranger Leander McNelly led his men in one dramatic campaign after another, apprehending cattle thieves, desperadoes, border ruffians, and other dangerous criminals and throwing them in jail or, if that's how they wanted it, six feet under. They would stop at nothing in pursuit of justice, even sending twenty-six Rangers across the border to retrieve stolen cattle-taking on hundreds of Mexican troops with nothing but their Sharps rifles and six-guns. The nation came to call them "McNelly's Rangers." Set against the backdrop of 200 years of thrilling Texas Rangers history, this page-turner details the tough life along the Texas border that was tamed by a courageous, yet doomed, captain and his team of fearless men. New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin takes readers deep into the heart of Texas and beyond in this thrilling true account of some of the most legendary frontier lawmen of all time.

An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive.On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down tells this largely untold and riveting true story.Moser was just twenty-two years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser's journey into hell began.Moser and his courageous comrades from England, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere endured the most horrific conditions during their imprisonment... until the day the orders were issued by Hitler himself to execute them. Only a most desperate plan would save them.The page-turning momentum of Lightning Down is like that of a thriller, but the stories of imprisoned and brutalized airmen are true and told in unforgettable detail, led by the distinctly American voice of Joe Moser, who prays every day to be reunited with his family.Lightning Down is a can't-put-it-down inspiring saga of brave men confronting great evil and great odds against survival.

An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive.On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down tells this largely untold and riveting true story.Moser was just twenty-two years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser's journey into hell began.Moser and his courageous comrades from England, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere endured the most horrific conditions during their imprisonment... until the day the orders were issued by Hitler himself to execute them. Only a most desperate plan would save them.The page-turning momentum of Lightning Down is like that of a thriller, but the stories of imprisoned and brutalized airmen are true and told in unforgettable detail, led by the distinctly American voice of Joe Moser, who prays every day to be reunited with his family.Lightning Down is a can't-put-it-down inspiring saga of brave men confronting great evil and great odds against survival.