Known as two of the best pistol fighters of their day, Ben Thompson and King Fisher have remained an enigma in the chronicles of the American West. While other gunfighters have achieved infamy through the stories told in pulp magazines and newspapers of the day these two men were largely ignored. Both were credited with killing a string of men during their lifetime and the mere mention of their names was usually enough to sober up a drunken opponent or cause a sober man to contemplate his own epitaph. The Texas Pistoleers tells their story in vivid detail and relates the historically accurate account of their deaths in a mystery shrouded ambush in a San Antonio saloon on a chilly March night in 1884.

The Vaudeville Theater Ambush of 1884 went down in history as one of the most famous gunfights in San Antonio, but the killing that night of Ben Thompson and John King Fisher, two of the most notorious pistoleers of the day, became something of a mystery. The two men entered the theatre just before midnight on March 11, and less than an hour later, both lay dead, shot down in what for all accounts was a true massacre. The responsible gunmen never were prosecuted for their crimes, and Thompson and Fisher--a mere mention of either man's name was enough to put the fear of death in any opponent--have been widely ignored since. Now, historian G.R. Williamson brings to light the mystery and the myths surrounding these men and their infamous deaths in Texas Pistoleers.

The Vaudeville Theater Ambush of 1884 went down in history as one of the most famous gunfights in San Antonio, but the killing that night of Ben Thompson and John King Fisher, two of the most notorious pistoleers of the day, became something of a mystery. The two men entered the theatre just before midnight on March 11, and less than an hour later, both lay dead, shot down in what for all accounts was a true massacre. The responsible gunmen never were prosecuted for their crimes, and Thompson and Fisher--a mere mention of either man's name was enough to put the fear of death in any opponent--have been widely ignored since. Now, historian G.R. Williamson brings to light the mystery and the myths surrounding these men and their infamous deaths in Texas Pistoleers.

The Notorious Texas Pistoleers - Ben Thompson & King Fisher (Second Edition) Known as two of the best pistol fighters of their day, Ben Thompson and John King Fisher have remained an enigma in the chronicles of the Western Frontier. While other gun fighters have achieved notoriety through the stories told in the pulp magazines and newspapers of the day, these two men have been largely ignored. Both were credited with killing a string of men during their lifetime and the mere mention of their names was usually enough to sober up a drunken opponent or cause a sober man to contemplate his own epitaph. These men were not cold-blooded murders, but rather stand-up gun fighters that faced their adversaries in the winner-take-all shootout. The Notorious Texas Pistoleers tells their story in vivid detail and relates the true account of their deaths in a mystery shrouded ambush in a San Antonio saloon on a chilly March night in 1884 "They called King Fisher and Ben Thompson bad men, but they wasn't bad men; they just wouldn't stand for no foolishness, and they never killed anyone unless they bothered them." Tom Sullivan, deputy sheriff in Medina County, Texas

The award-winning author’s “fearless” debut novel chronicles the life of a legendary Texas outlaw with “a ruthless sensibility . . . spare and tough” (Publishers Weekly). Some called him a Texas hero. Some called him the Devil himself. But on one point they all agreed. While he was alive, John Wesley Hardin was the deadliest man in Texas. A killer at fifteen, in the next few years he became skilled enough with his pistols to back down Wild Bill Hickok in the street. The law finally caught up with him when he was twenty-five. By then, he had killed as many as forty men and been shot so many times that, it was said, he carried a pound of lead in his flesh. In jail he became a scholar, studying law books until he won himself freedom, and afterwards he tried to lead an upright life. It was not to be. By the time he was killed in 1895, Hardin was an anachronism—the last true gunfighter of the Old West. With each chapter told from a different character’s perspective, The Pistoleer is “a genuine tour-de-force” of Western historical fiction from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize–winning author of In the Rogue Blood (Rocky Mountain News). “Astonishing.” —Kirkus Reviews “Detailed and cinematic.” —Publishers Weekly “An achievement by any standards, but as a first novel is simply astounding.” —Roundup Magazine

The tally of Texas lawmen killed during the states first sixty-five years of organized law enforcement is truly staggering. From Texas Rangers the likes of Silas Mercer Parker Jr., gunned down at Parkers Fort in 1836, to Denton County sheriff s deputy Floyd Coberly, murdered by an inmate in 1897 after ten days on the job, this collection accounts for all of those unsung heroes. Not merely an attempt to retell a dozen popular peace officer legends, Texas Lawmen, 18351899 represents thousands of hours of research conducted over more than a decade. Ron DeLord and Cliff Caldwell have carefully assembled a unique and engaging chronicle of Texas history.

Without a doubt, George Devol was the most notorious of the Mississippi riverboat gamblers. He mastered the fine art of card manipulation at an early age and by the time he reached twenty he was an accomplished card sharp. Devol could stack a deck, deal seconds or from the bottom of the deck. Though he had large hands, he could nimbly palm cards or insert cards with ease. He knew all the tricks to skin wealthy plantation owners, merchants, businessmen, soldiers, and even ministers who traveled on the busy waterways of the nineteenth century. At the same time, Devol was a maestro at working the short cons, particularly 3 card Monte. He and his partners raked in millions from fleeced suckers over the course of his forty years as a crooked gambler. George Devol – Notorious Riverboat Gambler, Card Sharp & Scam Artist tells his story in vivid detail based on solid historical research. Then, Devol tells his own story through his meandering, semi-autobiography, Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi, he published in 1896 at the age of 67 when he retired from gambling. In a series of 179 memoirs, he recounts the major events of his gambling life. Though heavily embellished, his accounts divulge his cheating technics and his philosophy about skinning his victims. Allowing for his penchant for self-aggrandizement, the memoirs are a hoot to read. George Devol’s book is included with all of his stories appearing exactly as he published them in 1896, with all the spelling and grammatical mistakes intact. The steamboat scoundrel was a major character in the history of the Old West and his story is told in a humorous, entertaining style and is the first book to cover his entire saga.

A sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer--America's first--who stalked Austin, Texas in 1885 In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch. Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city. With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life.

This widely regarded classic represents a volume of biographies of numerous master gunfighters, including such notables as John Wesley Hardin, Billy the Kid, Dallas Stoudenmire, Sam Bass, Wild Bill Hickok, Butch Cassidy, and Tom Horn. Himself a Westerner familiar with the feel of pistol and rifle, Cunningham knew firsthand several of the Texas gunfighters featured in his book, the product of more than 35 years of research, interviews, and writing.

This the true story of Willis Newton and his outlaw gang who robbed trains and over seventy banks—more than Jessie James, the Daltons, and all of the rest of the Old West outlaws—combined. They robbed a number of banks at gunpoint, but their specialty was hitting banks in the middle of the night and blowing the vaults with nitroglycerine. One frigid night in January of 1921 they even hit two banks, back to back, in Hondo, Texas. Their biggest haul occurred in 1924 when they robbed a train outside of Rondout, Illinois—getting away with $3,000,000. They still hold the record for the biggest train robbery in U.S. history. G.R. Williamson interviewed Willis Newton in 1979 at his home in Uvalde, Texas. A few months later the outlaw died at age 90. With a tape recorder running, Newton rattled off the well-practiced account of his life in machine gun fashion—rationalizing everything he had done, blaming others for his imprisonments, and repeatedly claiming that he had only stolen from “other thieves.” Speaking in a high-pitched raspy voice, Willis was quite articulate in telling his stories—a master of fractured grammar. He spoke in a rapid fire jailhouse prose using a wide range of criminal jargon that was sometimes difficult to follow but Williamson kept his tape recorder running, changing cassettes as fast as possible. The taped interview revealed the quintessence of a criminal mind. Everything he had done was justified by outside forces, “Nobody ever give me nothing. All I ever got was hell!” Over the course of the interview, Willis told how he was raised as a child in the hard scrabble of West Texas and how he was first arrested for a crime “that they knowed I didn’t do.” He went into detail about his first bank holdup, how he “greased” safes with nitroglycerine, robbed trains, and evaded the lawmen that came after him. Willis described robbing banks throughout Texas and a large number of mid-western states, including another back-to-back bank heist in Spencer, Indiana. Eventually he recounted the events of the Toronto Bank Clearing House robbery in 1923 and finally the great train robbery outside of Rondout, Illinois. He went into great detail about the beatings he and his brothers took from the Chicago police when they were later captured. As he told the story his face reddened and his voice rose to a high pitched screech until he had to pause to catch his breath. Then lowering his voice he described how he had managed to negotiate a crafty deal with a postal inspector for reduced prison sentences for himself and his brothers by revealing where the loot was hidden. He told about his prison years at Leavenworth and his illegal businesses he ran in Tulsa, Oklahoma, after he got out of prison in 1929. He complained bitterly about being sent back to prison in McAlester, Oklahoma, for a bank robbery “they knowed I didn’t do,” in Medford. Willis took great pride in saying that, “We never killed nobody, we was just in it for the money. Sure, we shot a few people but we never killed a single man.” During his extensive research, Williamson uncovered evidence to dispel this myth that Willis insisted upon until his death. Now Williamson, using transcripts from his interviews with Willis and others who knew the outlaw, first-hand accounts from eye witnesses, newspaper articles, police records, and trial proceedings, tells the true story of The Last Texas Outlaw—Willis Newton.