On April 17, 2013, an explosion during a fire at the West Fertilizer Company storage and distribution facility in West, Texas, killed 15 people, injured more than 160, and damaged or destroyed more than 150 town buildings. Investigators later confirmed that ammonium nitrate was the trigger for the explosion, but the cause of the initial fire remains unknown.Brian McCloskey, a company employee, had secured his ex-convict father, Andrew, a janitor's job at the facility. When nothing was found of Andrew except a small splotch of his blood under a machine, Brian filed a million dollar life insurance claim.Logan Insurance Services sends private investigator Dan Ballantine to central Texas to confirm Andrew McCloskey died in the explosion. He meets retired police detective Dave Sheppard who had investigated the case that put Andrew McCloskey in prison. Sheppard warns Ballantine the convict had acted as an assassin for his outlaw biker gang.Ballantine soon finds himself dealing with angry knife-wielding and Glock packing bikers as he searches the state for McCloskey.

Winner of the 2008 Rupert N. Richardson AwardBook of the Year by the National Association for Outlaw and Lawmen History

On July 23, 1911, 15 yr old León Martínez was arrested in Saragosa Texas for the murder of Emma Brown, a white school teacher, and forced at gunpoint to confess or be lynched by local ranchers. On July 28, 1911, He was tried and convicted by the only evidence - the forced confession. On May 11, 1914, León Cárdenas Martínez, Jr., was executed.

Kailey and Shinto are first class detectives and lifelong friends. Thrown into the midst of a brutal murder case, they need to nail the killer while fending off the Mexican cartel. Can they get to the bottom of it and survive? Partners Kailey Carmichael and Shinto Elliot police the streets of Midland, Texas, but with very different approaches. Nevertheless, they share an identical passion for justice in whatever form it takes. Kailey is fresh out of the FBI forensics class and has an analytical mind. Focused on the job, she uses it as a relief from the demons of her daughter's horrific death. Shinto shatters every gay stereotype as an ex-Army MP with an edge. Physical and with a no-nonsense attitude, she stands her ground no matter what. When a retired professor is savagely murdered, the duo catches the case and a just-released ex-con looks good for the crime. For Shinto, it's a slam dunk, but Kailey isn't convinced. It just looks too clean and easy. Digging deeper, the pair learn hard lessons about faith, friendship, and trusting your instincts as they fend off the Mexican cartel, a meddling DEA, and police department politics on the way to meting out justice. Move over Cagney and Lacy, Rizzoli and Iles, and make way for Kailey and Shinto. West Texas Dead is book one in this hardboiled mystery series. Order your copy now, get cozy, and dig into this newly released mystery.

Out on the Texas Plains, wrangling with history resembles taking in the sunset--a stampede of splendor and shadow all at once. Roam an Ohio-sized patch of prairie and take stock of the heroic tasks and moral dilemmas facing the unforgettable characters who called West Texas home. Ben Hogan sinks a putt with the focus of the Clovis man who hunted mammoth in the same spot thousands of years before. Lubbock's largest lawsuit runs its interminable course. And a starving Roy Rogers makes a quick meal of jackrabbit on the Llano Estacado. Chuck Lanehart gathers statesmen and journalists, outlaws and entertainers, in these profiles of the Texas Plains.

The West Texas Murders - Book 7 in the Morgan Crew Murder Mystery Series by Author and Investigator, Arthur Lee.Morgan and Sandy are trapped in the isolation of the West Texas desert along the border with Mexico, where they are again faced with danger and death. They confront the violent and hate filled Sheriff of a small desert border town, where murder is as ordinary as the desert heat. The locals all seem to be hiding something massive and grim. A giant of a bounty hunter and a woman, the Comanche Indian pilot of a scraped together biplane, may be their only friends.They risk their lives to save their friend - their child's nanny - Betsy Concanon, who has been charged with murder. Killings, mystery and more danger than they have seen before lie ahead of each step they take. And, with an ever changing story, you will be surprised at virtually every turn of the page.

In the winter of 1901, James W. Jarrott led a band of twenty-five homesteader families toward the Llano Estacado in far West Texas, newly opened for settlement by a populist Texas legislature. But frontier cattlemen who had been pasturing their herds on the unfenced prairie land were enraged by the encroachment of these “nesters.” In August 1902 a famous hired assassin, Jim Miller, ambushed and murdered J. W. Jarrott. Who hired Miller? This crime has never been solved, until now. Award-winning author Bill Neal investigates this cold case and successfully pieces together all the threads of circumstantial evidence to fit the noose snugly around the neck of Jim Miller’s employer. What emerges from these pages is the strength of intriguing characters in an engrossing narrative: Jim Jarrott, the diminutive advocate who fearlessly champions the cause of the little guy. The ruthless and slippery assassin, Deacon Jim Miller. And finally Jarrott’s young widow Mollie, who perseveres and prospers against great odds and tells the settlers to “Stay put!”