|
|
|  | | A Plea For Justice: The Timothy Cole Story
A Plea For Justice: The Timothy Cole Story is the gut-wrenching account of a twenty-four-year-old black Texas Tech student, majoring in Political Science, and an army veteran dubbed as the “Tech rapist”—who was unjustly arrested, convicted, and incarcerated until his death in 1999 while serving the thirteenth year of a twenty-five year sentence, all for a 1985 rape crime in Lubbock that he did not commit. Ten years after Cole died, Judge Charlie Baird of the 299th District Court sitting at Austin took the bold and unprecedented step and exonerated him, and the day before Texas Election Day of March 2, 2010, Governor Rick Perry granted him a full pardon which is the first ever posthumous pardon in the state’s history.
McKinley worked closely with the Lubbock Police Department, the Innocence Project of Texas in Lubbock, as well as Tim Cole’s mother and family. The well-illustrated book contains a provocative and fascinating story that could have well been plucked from a crime novel that illustrates how in a bid for a quick arrest and verdict, the police department and the county district attorney ignored the basics of crime investigation and prosecution. But in the end, the work provides a message of hope for those innocents who yet remain behind bars—and its theme underscores how a mother, bound by love, honor, and conviction, never gave up on a promise to prove her son’s innocence
| |  | | Black Gold to Bluegrass: From the Oil Fields of Texas to Spindletop Farm
Black Gold to Bluegrass is the first such work that concentrates wholly on the Second Spindletop Oil Boom that occurred in Beaumont, Texas (beginning in 1925) and what happened afterward—taking the story from the oil fields of Southeast Texas and Louisiana to the Bluegrass of Kentucky.
p style="text-align: justify">After partnering with Thomas Peter Lee of Houston, Frank Yount, water-well driller turned wildcatter, struck it rich, and the Yount-Lee Oil Company began a remarkable march that almost took it to the top of the oil industry. Although he used some of his wealth to benefit his fellowman, Frank Yount, also put together a priceless collection of antique violins, and some of the classiest and most expensive automobiles of the day, including three Duesenbergs and a Cord. He built a state-of-the-art Saddlebred training facility in Beaumont, hired dashing horseman Cape G | |  | | Chinqua Where? The Spirit of Rural America, 1947-1955
It portrays the numerous humorous exploits, misadventures and shenanigans of a youth while growing up in the East Texas backwoods community of Chinquapin during 1947-1955. While it is mainly intended as humor for the general reader of any age, CHINQUA WHERE? also includes the seriousness and realism associated with bittersweet memories and the disappointments of rural family life.
This work portrays the "numerous humorous exploits, misadventures and shenanigans" of a youth while growing up in the East Texas backwoods community of Chinquapin during 1947-1955. While it is mainly intended as humor for the general reader of any age, including children, i>CHINQUA WHERE? /i>also includes the seriousness and realism associated with bittersweet memories and the disappointments of rural family life. This is social history and humor at its best. br />
| |  | | Devil's Pocket
Legend says that Devil’s Pocket, eerie and foreboding, is a place where lost souls wander throughout eternity and the devil lives here still. The air is filled with the pungent odor of sulfur, gnarled oaks struggle to survive, and something like mist spews from the ground. Morgan Colebridge stoops, picks up a handful of soil, and knows this site is the answer to his prayers. Shaking the dirt from his fingers, he smells the greasy residue. There’s black gold here—no doubt! And he’s going to own it—all he has to do is make a pact with Price Thornton, whom many demonize as Lucifer’s own, and then marry Rachael Priest, the old man’s granddaughter.
Set in the rich, oil-producing region of Southeast Texas beginning in 1870, i>Devil's Pocket /i>follows the saga of three families that twine and intertwine so fully that murder had to result. With a background that produced the non-fiction work i>Black Gold to Bluegrass: From the Oil Fields of Texas to Spindletop Farm of Kentucky/i>, Fred B. McKinley hits a home run with this, his first novel and provocative historical thriller.
| |  | | King Cotton: Coach Cotton Robinson and the Buna Boys' Basketball Legacy
From 1955 through 1963, the boys' basketball team of Buna High School—the behemoth from the Southeast Texas pineywoods—was considered the one that opponents had to beat if they ever hoped to win a State A or AA championship. KING COTTON chronicles the life of the legendary coach who led them, arguably one of the best that Texas, and perhaps the nation, has ever seen, and how he came to capture seven state titles, still a record after ninety years of tournament competition in the Lone Star State. Robinson’s record at the state tournament stands at 15–1 with the single loss to Sweeny in 1954.
|
|
|
|
