Waters used Allie Earp's anecdotes as a frame for adding a narrative and "building a case, essentially piling quote upon quote to prove that Wyatt Earp was a con man, thief, robber, and eventually murderer". The book "further embroidered upon Frank Waters's imaginings about Wyatt's adulterous affair" with Josephine. It was described by one reviewer as "a smear campaign levied against the Earp brothers". Years later, he wrote a letter to the Arizona Historical Society in which he admitted that he had combined Allie's words to create a "cold, objective analysis" and "expose" of the whole subject.