The latest installment in the Confidential series, Texas Confidential pokes at the seamy underbelly of the Lone Star State, where folks do everything -- including sex, scandal, murder, and mayhem -- in a big way. Author Michael J. Varhola rounds up more than 40 Texas tales -- from the rogues who defended the Alamo to the rogues who brought down Enron. Along the way, readers learn the sordid details of sex -- from Miss Hattie's Bordello in West Texas (now a museum!) to "Charlie Wilson's Whore" scandal -- from corrupt governors "Ma" and "Pa" Ferguson to corrupt politicians Lyndon Johnson and Tom DeLay; murder -- from Bonnie and Clyde to the Kennedy Assassination to the over-zealous cheerleader mom; and mayhem -- from the crash of a UFO in 1897 in the little town of Aurora to Nazi war criminals hiding in El Paso (while working for the local government). Packed with pictures and loaded with sidebars, Texas Confidential is informative, irreverent, and enormously entertaining.

When The Texas Chain Saw Massacre first hit movie screens in 1974 it was both reviled and championed. To critics, it was either "a degrading, senseless misuse of film and time" or "an intelligent, absorbing and deeply disturbing horror film." However it was an immediate hit with audiences. Banned and celebrated, showcased at the Cannes film festival and included in the New York MoMA's collection, it has now come to be recognized widely as one of the greatest horror movies of all time. A six-foot-four poet fresh out of grad school with limited acting experience, Gunnar Hansen played the masked, chain-saw-wielding Leatherface. His terrifying portrayal and the inventive work of the cast and crew would give the film the authentic power of nightmare, even while the gritty, grueling, and often dangerous independent production would test everyone involved, and lay the foundations for myths surrounding the film that endure even today. Critically-acclaimed author Hansen here tells the real story of the making of the film, its release, and reception, offering unknown behind-the-scenes details, a harrowingly entertaining account of the adventures of low-budget filmmaking, illuminating insights on the film's enduring and influential place in the horror genre and our culture, and a thoughtful meditation on why we love to be scared in the first place.

“Everything is bigger in Texas,” as the saying goes, and this certainly applies to the history of sleaze, iniquity, and violence associated with the Lone Star State. Texas Confidential: Sex, Scandal, Murder, and Mayhem provides a glimpse at the state’s seamy underbelly and delves into some of the most striking episodes of lust, corruption, slaughter, and chaos in Texas and the people who have perpetrated them. To a colorful rogues’ gallery of lunatics, corrupt politicians, prostitutes, murderers, and every other sort of scoundrel that appears in the book, author Michael O. Varhola has added a smattering of UFOs, mythological beasts, and other paranormal oddities. Specific chapters among the 54 that appear in Texas Confidential include “Rogues of the Alamo,” a look at the things that just about everyone connected with the famous battle had to hide; “The Ivory Tower of Death,” on the bloody 1966 University of Texas rampage that left 18 people dead and 42 wounded; “Porno, Texas Style,” which includes a list of adult actors from the state; and “The Aurora UFO Incident,” about the state’s oldest documented UFO incident, which occurred in 1897.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.