Texas Ranger Jim Blawcyzk is looking forward to an easy Monday, until he gets a call from the Llano County Sheriff. A woman has been murdered, the only clue a dead chicken hanging beside her. Before Jim can complete his investigation, another body -- and another dead chicken -- have been discovered in an abandoned truck.
Four plays by US Chicana dramatist Amparo Garcia-Crow that chart the violent, beautiful, hard-bitten lives of characters in South Texas. Cross-cultural collisions abound in the spirited geographies of her incandenscent prose for the stage. With preface by acclaimed dramatist Octavio Solis and introduction by scholar Jose Limon of the University of Texas-Austin, this quartet of plays is a vital addition to published works of Chicana literature.
Murder Ballads Old & New: A Dark and Bloody Record is an exploration of an age-old topic— our human need to document the horrors of the world around us. The murder ballad, here expanded to include songs about traumatic loss in modern variants and multiple styles, including punk, post-punk, alt-country, and folk. The book is a graveyard stroll past tombs both well-kept and half-hidden. Murder Ballads Old & New excavates facts about killers, victims, and the folkloric storytellers who disseminated their tales in song. Author Steven L. Jones focuses the tragic ballad as “an act of remembering and a soul-reckoning with the ineffable.” Songs examined range from obscure tunes from the founding days of the United States to familiar canonical songs learned in schoolrooms and honkytonks. Jones tackles each song in a manner that’s equal parts musicological, psychosocial, and genealogical as he uncovers stories that reveal larger contexts and maps the lineages of songs and themes, forebears, and ancestors. Murder Ballads Old & New includes a wide range of songs and performers from the relatively unknown (Boiled in Lead, Freakons, Nelstone’s Hawaiians) to the ironically famous (Johnny Cash, Lou Reed, Sonic Youth). Highlights include tales of Muddy Waters guitar sideman Pat Hare, whose incendiary blues boast “I’m Gonna Murder My Baby” proved grimly prophetic. And honky-tonk pioneer Eddie Noack, whose morbid stab at late-career rebirth, “Psycho,” couldn’t match the bottomless tragedy of his own life. As well as Depression-era holdup man Pretty Boy Floyd, Schubert’s mythical Erlkönig, and the Manson Family. Murder Ballads Old & New is a compelling delve into the perennial American fascination with True Crime. Includes archival and historical black & white images.
In May, 1876, events in this story led to the murder of a pretty fifteen year-old girl known as Sarah Ann (Sallie) Curry. A first page article about the murder was headlined as "A Murder Most Foul, Strange, and Unnatural," but what did "Strange and Unnatural" mean in the murder of a girl?
A modern retelling of 20 sensational true crimes, No Place Like Murder reveals the inside details behind nefarious acts that shocked the Midwest between 1869 and 1950. The stories chronicle the misdeeds, examining the perpetrators' mindsets, motives, lives, apprehensions, and trials, as well as what became of them long after. True crime author Janis Thornton profiles notorious murderers such as Frankie Miller, who was fed up when her fiancé stood her up for another woman. As fans of the song "Frankie and Johnny" already know, Frankie met her former lover at the door with a shotgun. Thornton's tales reveal the darker side of life in the Midwest, including the account of Isabelle Messmer, a plucky young woman who dreamed of escaping her quiet farm-town life. After she nearly took down two tough Pittsburgh policemen in 1933, she was dubbed "Gun Girl" and went on to make headlines from coast to coast. In 1942, however, after a murder conviction in Texas, she vowed to do her time and go straight. Full of intrigue and revelations, No Place Like Murder also features such folks as Chirka and Rasico, the first two Hoosier men to die in the electric chair after they brutally murdered their wives in 1913. The two didn't meet until their fateful last night. An enthralling and chilling collection, No Place Like Murder is sure to thrill true crime lovers.
In 1989 alone, for example, there were some forty-five major motion pictures which were sequels or part of a series. The film series phenomenon crosses all genres and has been around since the silent film era. This reference guide, in alphabetical order, lists some 906 English Language motion pictures, from 1899 to 1990, when the book was initially published. A brief plot description is given for each series entry, followed by the individual film titles with corresponding years, directors and performers. Animated pictures, documentaries and concert films are not included but movies released direct to video are.
It was the cat who "told" Sheriff Dan Rhodes that something was wrong. It ran into the house when he opened the door. His wife, Ivy, recognized the cat as belonging to their neighbor and told Dan to go check on the widow—Helen Harris never let the cat out of the house. When Dan finds Helen's body on her kitchen floor, there is nothing to indicate that her death wasn't an accident. But Ivy's words ring in his head. Why was the cat out? Helen had been active in a number of women's groups, one of which was the OWLS, the Older Women's Literary Society. She and some other women would also venture out with digging tools to look for ancient booty in the lands around the town. They didn't usually find much, but every now and then someone would dig up a coin or a piece of jewelry with potential. Could this have been the reason for Helen's death? The investigation becomes more complicated as Rhodes learns that she actually had a number of suitors. Also, a news-hungry reporter who smells a juicy story gives Rhodes more trouble. This is the fourteenth book in which Bill Crider has wowed readers with the extraordinary adventures of his Sheriff Dan Rhodes. Add a cast of vibrant characters, including wise-cracking deputies and the slightly wacky local citizens in Rhodes's bailiwick, and every book in this series is a wonderful treat.
Describes how a Bangladeshi immigrant, shot in the Dallas mini mart where he worked in the days after September 11 in a revenge crime, forgave his assailant and petitioned the state of Texas to spare his attacker the death penalty.