Overview

Just a year after the town of Borger, Texas was founded, the press called it ""the wickedest in the state"" for good reason. The town, sprung into existence overnight to support the oilfields, had become a lawless haven for bootleggers, pimps and gamblers, run by a crooked city hall. That environment attracts some of the most unsavory characters in prohibition America, including a gang of murderous bank robbers who head into Borger to spend their money on booze, gambling and prostitutes. In the span of weeks, the gang kills three law enforcement officers, bringing the worst heat imaginable: legendary Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer, who led the 1934 posse that tracked down and killed criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. His arrival threatens to break even this hardest boomtown in America-if it doesn't kill him first. What follows is one of the most thrilling and violent untold stories from the era of gangsters, lawmen and vice. Author Joe Pappalardo brings to life a town previously lost in the haze of history.

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9781250287564

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Reviews

Praise for Joe Pappalardo: ""A fast-paced journey around the West during the transformative years of the mid-19th century"" ―Wall Street Journal on Four Against the West ""Fast-paced and full of local politics and old-fashioned gunfights―a pleasure for fans of true crime and oaters alike."" ―Kirkus Reviews on Red Sky Morning ""Mr. Pappalardo, a veteran journalist, has a nice way with words. The mission itself, targeting German submarine pens in France, is fairly routine and brilliantly described...a wonderful yarn."" ―Wall Street Journal on Inferno

Author Information

JOE PAPPALARDO is the author of the critically acclaimed books Four Against the West: The True Saga of a Frontier Family That Reshaped the Nation-and Created a Legend; Red Sky Morning: The Epic True Story of Texas Ranger Company F, and more. Pappalardo is a freelance journalist and former associate editor of Air & Space Smithsonian magazine, a writing contributor to National Geographic magazine, a contributor to Texas Monthly, and a former senior editor at Popular Mechanics. He has appeared on C-Span, CNN, Fox News and television shows on the Science Channel and the History Channel.

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