Its wilderness notwithstanding, the Wild West was not necessarily a place to go in search of peace. While many settlers were decent folk, the American frontier’s wide open spaces also attracted unsavory characters in disproportionate numbers, many on the run looking for places to hide while they went on snubbing the law. Badasses of the Old West brings together in one compelling volume tales of the thirty-six worst (and best) robbers, rustlers, and bandits who shaped the history of the Wild West. From the famous, such as Billy the Kid and the Wild Bunch, to the lesser-known but still colorful and wicked Charles Brown and Bud Stevens, it compiles the stories of the most notorious black-hat wearers of a notorious age. Here are just some of the fascinating and forbidding faces you’ll meet:

Bud Stevens, whose murder of a cattle king’s son rang a death knell for an entire South Dakota town

William Quantrill, the terror of Civil War–era Missouri

Legendary bandits Frank and Jesse James

Cold-blooded Sam Brown, who sneered while cutting out a man’s heart but screamed in terror when the tables turned

Jack Slade, who was such an enigma across much of the West—a composite of gentleman and murderer—that he charmed both Mark Twain and Buffalo Bill