Research is a treasure hunt, and author Nancy J. Taniguchi found a big, shiny nugget for her Dirty Deeds: Land, Violence and the San Francisco Vigilance Committee (Oklahoma, $32.95). Taniguchi located the long-believed-lost records of the 1856 committee, the second set of vigilantes to stretch necks in the infant City by the Bay. She covers the infamous hangings of James Casey, Charles Cora and two others, plus the bizarre imprisonment of State Supreme Court Justice David Terry. And, she reveals the secret dealings behind the scenes. This tingling page-turner is not just a major contribution to California history, it helps us understand how the concepts of justice evolved in our society.
—Casey Tefertiller, author of Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend
Nancy J. Tanguchi uses long-lost primary documents in Dirty Deeds: Land, Violence, and the 1856 San Francisco Vigilance Committee to reach her conclusions on the corruption, greed and inquisitional violence of the Vigilance Committee, including the hanging of accused murderers Joseph Hetherington and Philander Brace on July 29, 1856 (above). – Courtesy of the California History Room, California State Library, Sacramento –
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If you want to talk baseball with Casey Tefertiller, he can certainly wow you (he wrote about baseball for The San Francisco Examiner and coauthored Mental Toughness: Baseball’s Winning Edge). In our arena, he is a designated hitter for Wyatt Earp and is the author of the critically-acclaimed Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend. He also discussed the influence of Walter Noble Burns’s Tombstone book on the legend of Earp in the foreword for the 1999 edition.