April 1920. The Prohibition era has just begun, and the Wild West is a fading memory. Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp is spending his golden years in Los Angeles as a private detective—and sometime consultant on cowboy movies. Bored and restless, he jumps at the chance to go east to help the son of his late friend Doc Holliday. The young man's mother fears her gambler son will lose everything, including his life, in wild and woolly Manhattan, where Johnny Holliday has opened one of the first, and glitziest, speakeasy nightclubs.

Wyatt's onetime deputy, Bat Masterson, joins the defense of young Holliday against a new breed of badmen—mobsters led by Brooklyn's brash, brutal Alphonse Capone. Young Al and his sadistic boss Frankie Yale have targeted Holliday's nightspot, where jazz-baby diva Texas Guinan is welcoming suckers and money is flowing like bootleg beer. . . .

As the Twenties (and machine guns) start to roar, the lawless lawmen move through a glittering world of beautiful showgirls, ruthless gangsters, and high-rolling gamblers—taking one last glorious stand that makes the O.K. Corral shoot-out pale, signaling the end of their legend and the beginning of Scarface Al's.

Black Hats is a thrilling and colorful ride into a time and place where good guys and bad guys blur, and big-city dreams turn on a dime. In vivid detail, the enigmatic Earp's character draws into sharp focus, while Capone's young personality comes alive, foreshadowing the master criminal he would become. Wearing another hat, Patrick Culhane is one of suspense fiction's most respected writers, and his newest, most innovative blockbuster is grand, enormous fun.

"The pseudonymous Culhane (aka Max Allen Collins) once again shows himself a master at the historical thriller. In 1920, 70-year-old Wyatt Earp, who's working as a PI in Los Angeles, is hired by 'Big Nosed Kate' Elder, the widow of his best friend, Doc Holliday. Kate wants Wyatt to go to New York and help her speakeasy-owning son, John (fathered by Doc as he was dying), who has fallen afoul of a local tough guy, the young Alphonse Capone. In New York, Wyatt teams with another old pal, Morning Telegraph sportswriter Bat Masterson. It's a fabulous setup, and Culhane has all the skills and experience to bring these great characters leaping off the page. The bad guys may have organized gangs and tommy guns, but in the end these whippersnappers are no match for Wyatt's cunning and 10-inch-long-barreled .45. The exigencies of historical fact force Culhane into a tamer ending than some readers might like, but the sheer fun of riding along with the two old lawmen and their memories will run roughshod over any quibbles or complaints." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

This brilliant, original thriller re-creates an exciting and dangerous time in American history and brings together two of the biggest personalities in crime history--Wyatt Earp, who's now in his golden years, and Al Capone, a hotheaded young gangster.

BLACK HATS is the untold story, rooted in factual speculation, of two of the most notorious men of the early 20th centuryandndash;andndash;Wyatt Earp and Al Capone. Earp made his name in his younger days, serving as a lawman who was well known for bending the law where he saw fit, and shooting first and asking questions later. But it's a littleandndash;known fact that Earp spent the last twenty years of his life as a private detective in Los Angeles. So when his best friend, Doc Holliday's, mistress implores the aging lawman to track down her and Holliday's errant son in Manhattan, Earp willingly takes the case. His task: to convince the young man to give up his illandndash;advised involvement in organized crime and bootlegging.

Earp enlists his old friend, Bat Masterson, who's now a sportswriter, and delves deep into the world of the New York mafia, where he comes across a young Alphonse Capone. Earp and Masterson, men who earned their names in the rough and tumble, lawless world of decades before, set their sights on liberating a young man from the ruthless thug Capone and his gang. The showdown between two of the most storied, and feared, personalities in American history will be a blockbuster tale for fans of crime writing and historical fiction alike.

A brilliant, original thriller that re-creates an exciting and dangerous time in American history and brings together Wyatt Earp and Al Capone--two-

Patrick Culhane is the pseudonym of acclaimed author Max Allan Collins, who has been dubbed "Mystery's Renaissance Man." His New York Times bestsellers include his graphic novel Road to Perdition, basis of the Academy Award-winning film, and the movie novels Saving Private Ryan and American Gangster.