<DIV>Whatever his name or alias at the moment&#8212;Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, Kid Antrim, Billy Bonney&#8212;people always called him the Kid. Not until his final month did anyone call him Billy the Kid. Newspapers pictured him as a king of outlaws; and his highly publicized capture, trial, escape, and end fixed his image in the public mind for all time. He was only twenty-one years old when a bullet from Sheriff Pat Garett&#8217;s six-shooter killed him on July 14, 1881. Within a year Billy the Kid became the subject of five dime-novel &#8220;biographies&#8221; as well as Garett&#8217;s ghost-written account, and that was just the beginning.</DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>Robert M. Utley does what countless books, movies, television shows, musical compositions, and paintings have failed to do: he successfully strips off the veneer of legendry to expose the reality of Billy the Kid. Using previously untapped sources, he presents an engrossing story&#8212;the most complete and accurate ever&#8212;of a youthful hoodlum and sometime killer who found his calling in New Mexico&#8217;s bloody power struggle known as the Lincoln County War. In unmasking the legend Utley also tells us much about our heritage of frontier vigilantism and violence.</DIV>