The Life and Adventures of Ben Hogan, the Wickedest Man in the World

He called himself the Wickedest Man in the World, and in the lawless wilds of 19th-century America, that title might well have been earned. Ben Hogan rose from the son of German immigrants, bullied and broke, to become a bare-knuckle boxer, gambler, dance-house operator, and occasional pirate a figure who burned so bright against the morally gray backdrop of frontier America that the papers couldn't stop writing about him. This is his story in his own words: a roving, unrepentant tale of revenge and reinvention, of clever cons pulled off with wit and brass, and of a man who refused to be small in a world that expected immigrants to stay invisible. It's not a moral tale. It's better than that: it's a window into how the outsiders, the outlaws, and the ambitious built their own America, one fist and one con at a time.