Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by Richard F. Selcer and published by TCU Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes material on Luke Short, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Sam Bass, and Butch Cassiday.

Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by William W. Johnstone and published by Pinnacle Books. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this Western series debut,Fort Worth is the deadliest place on the Texas frontier. Good thing the new sheriff isn’t afraid to die—or kill. “Stay the hell out of Fort Worth.” Those were the last words uttered by the boomtown’s last sheriff. Rail-thin and half starved, desperate cowpuncher Jess Casey ignores the travel advice. Instead, Casey not only enters Fort Worth, he takes the dead man’s job. Now it’s up to him to keep the peace in a body-riddled slice of heaven known as Hell’s Half Acre—home of notorious outlaws like Kurt Koenig and his merciless gang. For Koenig, the only good lawman is a dead one, and he puts a pretty price on Casey’s head. For Casey, that means war. Against him are the frontier’s fastest draw and a host of murderous triggers. On his side are decades of rock-hard Texas living, a couple of ne’er-do-well deputies, and the good sense to do all his talking behind the barrel of a fast-blazing gun . . .

Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by Susan Jonusas and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of a nation still reeling from war. In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders. The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders—one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War—were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of postbellum America, Hell’s Half-Acre explores the environment capable of allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original archival material, Susan Jonusas introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape. Hell’s Half-Acre is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community’s fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places.

Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by Will Christopher Baer and published by MacAdam/Cage Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short-story writer and novelist Baer goes for the gory in this follow-up to "Kiss Me, Judas" and "Penny Dreadful." Phineas Poe stumbles his way to San Francisco in search of ex-lover Jude who is under the spell of a wealthy sociopath, who's helping her play out a revenge fantasy.

Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by Nicholas Nicastro and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to the bloody end of bleeding Kansas… Based on true events, this unforgettable novel tells the story of the Bloody Benders, a family of grifters and thieves running an isolated feed store on the Kansas plains, boarding travelers along the Great Osage Trail. Beautiful Kate Bender was mysterious and well-versed in the dark arts; Ma and Pa were quiet and foreboding, speaking in guttural tones; and young John Bender was thought to be insane. On land soaked with the blood of conflict, the Benders made their home. And one by one, prairie travelers began to disappear… Rooted in history, this is a vivid tale of the Benders’ origins, and how they became some of the most horrific figures in early post-Civil War America. This gruesome Western thriller is perfect for lovers of Sweeney Todd, and fans of John Harwood and Sarah Raynes.

Download or read book A Half Acre of Hell written by Avis D. Schorer and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by Richard F. Selcer and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas is a place where legends are made, die, and are revived. Fort Worth, Texas, claims its own legend – Hell’s Half Acre – a wild ’n woolly accumulation of bordellos, cribs, dance houses, saloons, and gambling parlors. Tenderloin districts were a fact of life in every major town in the American West, but Hell’s Half Acre – its myth and its reality – can be said to be a microcosm of them all. The most famous and infamous westerners visited the Acre: Timothy (“Longhair Jim”) Courtright, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Sam Bass, Mary Porter, Etta Place, along with Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch, and many more. For civic leaders and reformers, the Acre presented a dilemma – the very establishments they sought to close down or regulate were major contributors to the local economy. Controversial in its heyday and receiving new attention by such movies as Lonesome Dove, Hell’s Half Acre remains the subject of debate among historians and researchers today. Richard Selcer successfully separates fact from fiction, myth from reality, in this vibrant study of the men and women of Cowtown’s notorious Acre.

Download or read book Black Boy Seventy fifth Anniversary Edition written by Richard Wright and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A special 75th anniversary edition of Richard Wright's powerful and unforgettable memoir, with a new foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author’s grandson. When it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, Black Boy was both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of the New York Times wrote that “if enough such books are written, if enough millions of people read them maybe, someday, in the fullness of time, there will be a greater understanding and a more true democracy.” Yet from 1975 to 1978, Black Boy was banned in schools throughout the United States for “obscenity” and “instigating hatred between the races.” Wright’s once controversial, now celebrated autobiography measures the raw brutality of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Enduring poverty, hunger, fear, abuse, and hatred while growing up in the woods of Mississippi, Wright lied, stole, and raged at those around him—whites indifferent, pitying, or cruel and Blacks resentful of anyone trying to rise above their circumstances. Desperate for a different way of life, he headed north, eventually arriving in Chicago, where he forged a new path and began his career as a writer. At the end of Black Boy, Wright sits poised with pencil in hand, determined to “hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo.” Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate. “To read Black Boy is to stare into the heart of darkness,” John Edgar Wideman writes in his foreword. “Not the dark heart Conrad searched for in Congo jungles but the beating heart I bear.” One of the great American memoirs, Wright’s account is a poignant record of struggle and endurance—a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time.

Download or read book Kiss Me Judas written by Will Christopher Baer and published by MacAdam/Cage Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first installment of the Phineas Poe trilogy. An unwitting police officer fsalls in love with a beautiful but deadly tremptress who steals his kidney and leaves him alone and empty.

Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by C. L. Brooks and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2014-05-18 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Eastern Idaho has many famous lava flows that cover large portions of the countryside. Unknowingly the humans have created parks and National Monuments out of these ancient places of destruction. Among these is Hell's Half Acre; a stretch of lava that runs along part of the I-15 highway in Idaho. For thousands of years something has lain dormant beneath the strange scenery; it's tomb. This book contains several tales of its awakening and the unwitting people who are pulled into the darkness of the lava flow known as Hell's Half Acre.

Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by Susan Jonusas and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of NPR's "Books We Love" New York Times Book Review's "The Best True Crime of 2022" "Rich in historical perspective and graced by novelistic touches, grips the reader from first to last.”—Wall Street Journal A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of a nation still reeling from war. In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders. The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders—one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War—were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of postbellum America, Hell’s Half-Acre explores the environment capable of allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original archival material, Susan Jonusas introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape. Hell’s Half-Acre is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community’s fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places.

Download or read book Good Time Girls of California written by Jan MacKell Collins and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While settlers were drawn out West by the often empty promises of the Gold Rush, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities of nineteenth-century California. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false advertising, or seeking to subsidize their income, thousands of women chose or were forced to enter an industry where they faced segregation and persecution, fines and jailing, and battled the other hazards of their profession. Some dreamed of escape through marriage or retirement, and some became infamous and even successful, but more often found relief only in death. An integral part of western history, the stories of these women continue to fascinate readers and captivate the minds of historians today. Working girls and madams like Bodie's famous Rosa May and the gambler Madame Moustache remain notorious celebrities in the annals of history, and Collins also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose roles in this illicit trade help shape our understanding of the American West.

Download or read book Conifer Country written by Michael Edward Kauffmann and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cold Blooded written by William W. Johnstone and published by Pinnacle Books. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: USA Today bestselling author: A sheriff fights back when terror takes over his Texas town . . . Bestselling Western writers William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone introduce lawman Jess Casey, a rode-hard, stubborn Texas cowboy with a knack for laying down the law—with a very fast gun . . . One day to live. Seven days to die. Sheriff Jess Carey and his oddball band of sidekicks have pulled off the impossible, taming Hell's Half Acre, the most lawless town in Texas, infamous for murder, mayhem, prostitution, and every random act of bloodshed imaginable. Now the no-good politicians in Austin have decided it's cheaper to dump hordes of criminals on Jess Carey's town than to hang 'em. In one dreadful week it seems as if the gates of Hell have burst open. Freed outlaws, gunslingers, bandits, rapists, desperados, drifters, and miscreants are roaming Hell's Half Acre—and Jess and his deputies are running out of bullets fast. As the fighting rages, some ruthless, powerful men see their chance to kill Sheriff Jess Carey and take the town for their own . . .

Download or read book Penny Dreadful written by Will Christopher Baer and published by MacAdam/Cage Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second installment of the Phineas Poe trilogy. Poe searches the dark and gothic urban underground for the object of his obsession, a violent beauty he can't live without and gets involved in a violent game of kill or be killed.

Download or read book Death in the Devil s Acre written by Anne Perry and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2010-01-26 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a doctor is found brutally murdered in the lurid section of London aptly named “Devil’s Acre,” even its most hardened residents are stunned. But shock soon turns to horror when Inspector Thomas Pitt discovers three more bodies with the same gruesome “calling card”: a stab wound in the back and a rather inexpertly executed mutilation. As Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, race against time to find the killer, a treacherous mystery unfolds. And no one, not the lowest brand of ruffian or the most established aristocrat, will escape unscathed.

Download or read book Under the Tulip Tree written by Michelle Shocklee and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixteen-year-old Lorena Leland’s dreams of a rich and fulfilling life as a writer are dashed when the stock market crashes in 1929. Seven years into the Great Depression, Rena’s banker father has retreated into the bottle, her sister is married to a lazy charlatan and gambler, and Rena is an unemployed newspaper reporter. Eager for any writing job, Rena accepts a position interviewing former slaves for the Federal Writers’ Project. There, she meets Frankie Washington, a 101-year-old woman whose honest yet tragic past captivates Rena. As Frankie recounts her life as a slave, Rena is horrified to learn of all the older woman has endured—especially because Rena’s ancestors owned slaves. While Frankie’s story challenges Rena’s preconceptions about slavery, it also connects the two women whose lives are otherwise separated by age, race, and circumstances. But will this bond of respect, admiration, and friendship be broken by a revelation neither woman sees coming?