Mary Doria Russell, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Sparrow, returns with Epitaph. An American Iliad, this richly detailed and meticulously researched historical novel continues the story she began in Doc, following Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday to Tombstone, Arizona, and to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A deeply divided nation. Vicious politics. A shamelessly partisan media. A president loathed by half the populace. Smuggling and gang...

Dr. John Henry Holliday, having become a professional gambler after moving from Atlanta to the Texas frontier, agrees to travel to Dodge City, Kansas, with Hungarian prostitute Mária Katarina Harony, where he opens a dental office, meets part-time policeman Wyatt Earp, and becomes involved in the investigation into the murder of a boy named Johnnie Sanders.

Linguist Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest who leads a twenty-first century scientific mission to an extraterrestrial culture, is involved in a tragic misunderstanding with the alien civilization that leaves him physically and spiritually maimed.