Lone Star Sleuths: An Anthology of Texas Crime Fiction » (New Edition)

BILL CUNNINGHAM is a San Marcos, Texas, public relations consultant and former Chairman of the Texas State University System Board of Regents.

STEVEN L. DAVIS is the Assistant Curator of the Southwestern Writers Collection Texas State University-San Marcos.

ROLLO K. NEWSOM is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Folklore Emeritus at Texas State University-San Marcos.

Texas has always staked a large claim on the nation's imagination, and its mystery literature is no exception. Hundreds of crime novels are set within the state, most of which have been published in the last twenty years. From the highest point atop the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas to the Piney Woods of East Texas, from the High Plains of the Panhandle to the subtropical climate of the lower Rio Grande Valley, mystery writers have covered every aspect of Texas's extraordinarily diverse geography.
The first book to emphasize the wealth of Texas's mystery writers and the images they convey of the state's wide range of regions and cultures, Lone Star Sleuths is a noteworthy introduction not only to the literary genre but also to a sense of Texas as a place in fiction. Celebrating a genre that has expanded to include women and an increasing diversity of cultures, the book features selections from the works of such luminaries as Kinky Friedman and Mary Willis Walker, lesser-known stars in the making, and even some outsiders like Nevada Barr and Carolyn Hart who have succumbed to the allure of the state's weather, geography, and colorful history.
Lone Star Sleuths captures the sense of place that distinguishes much of the great literature set in Texas, and is a must-read for mystery lovers.

Introduction     ix
El Paso and West Texas     1
Track of the Cat     2
El Camino del Rio     9
Time Bombs     17
Bordersnakes     22
Death of a Healing Woman     33
The Killer Inside Me     39
Austin and the Hill Country     49
A Twist at the End     50
Rock Critic Murders     56
Buck Fever     67
Rosemary Remembered     77
Armadillos and Old Lace     85
Houston and the Gulp Coast     95
Heat from Another Sun     96
Interstate Dreams     104
Drowned Man's Key     112
Bay of Sorrows     117
Dallas, Fort Worth, and the Panhandle     129
Umbrella Man     130
Prime Suspect     138
The Sheriff and the Panhandle Murders     147
East Texas     157
The Two-Bear Mambo     158
Gone Fishin     169
Funny as a Dead Relative     176
San Antonio and South Texas     183
Death on the River Walk     184
The Last King of Texas     189
The Case of the Hook-billed Kites     198
Partners in Crime     203
Small Town Texas     211
Winning Can Be Murder     212
Hot Enough to Kill     219
Do Unto Others     231
Agatite     240
End of the Road     249
The Red Scream     250
Permissions Acknowledgments     263