Amy Harmon grew up in a remote Utah valley, very close to where the famed outlaw Butch Cassidy really lived. Quite a few years before her, of course. The folklore surrounding his Robin Hood reputation has always fascinated her.

She's far too young to have seen the famous movie starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford first time round, but she's excavated the history and shed a whole new light on the story and her latest book, The Outlaw Noble Salt.

Hi, I'm your host, Jenny Wheeler, and in this week's Binge Reading episode, Amy talks about the mystery surrounding Robert LeRoy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, the American outlaw, train robber and leader of a gang called The Wild Bunch. It's officially recorded that he died in a shootout with local authorities in Bolivia in 1908. But did he really? Amy's book is a fascinating and heart-touching re-imagining of the story.

Mystery and Thriller Giveaway

Our Giveaway this week - We always have free books to Giveaway -. is Mystery Thriller And Suspense Freebies.

MYSTERY, THRILLER & SUSPENSE FREEBIES

And the range is huge with something to suit every taste ,from historicals like Poisoned Legacy, Book One in my Of Gold& Blood Gold Rush romance series through to cozies and contemporary psychological thrillers.

Find the link to download these books in the show notes for the episode on the website. The Joys Of Binge Reading.com.

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Links to items mentioned in the show

Movie: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064115/

Folklore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy

Eliot Ness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Ness

Gladys Knight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Knight

Books Amy has loved in the past or is reading now:

Louise L'Amour - Western classics: https://www.louislamour.com/

Lucy Maud Montgomery: https://lmmontgomery.ca/about/lmm/her-life

Anne of Green Gables: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anne-of-Green-Gables

Baroness Orczy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel

Paullina Simons The Bronze Horseman: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/47499.Paullina_Simons

Susanna Kearsley: susannakearsley.com

Poets:

William Butler Yeats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats

Emily Dickinson: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emily-Dickinson

Introducing author Amy Harmon

Amy Harmon: re-imagining the Burch Cassidy story

But now here’s Amy. Hello there, Amy, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.

Amy Harmon: I am so excited to talk to you, Jenny.

Jenny Wheeler: You've written more than 20 books and the most recent one is The Outlaw Noble Salt, and it retells the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance story, The Wild Bunch Story. If we are of a certain age, we saw the movie years ago, so it's well known. What did you feel you could bring new to it?

Amy Harmon: I have always been drawn to the story, and I think it's because I grew up in a valley, just north of the valley where Butch Cassidy, who wasn't known as Butch Cassidy in his early years, he was Robert Parker, lived. He was born very close to where I was born, a hundred years apart. We were born in small town Utah at the end of the Wild West era.

He was the last of this very short time period that defined in the West. And I have always been interested in him. I've always felt a connection to him. Beyond just of course, the movie which came out in 1969, which predates me a little bit. I didn't grow up with the movie, but it was very much the Western lore that is part of this place...