“Impressively researched and written with storytelling verve” (The Wall Street Journal), this is the definitive account of the disastrous siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, featuring never-before-seen documents, photographs, and interviews, from former investigative reporter Jeff Guinn, bestselling author of Manson and The Road to Jonestown. For the first time in thirty years, more than a dozen former ATF agents who participated in the initial February 28, 1993, Waco raid speak on the record about the poor decisions of their commanders that led to this deadly confrontation. The revelations in this book include why the FBI chose to end the siege with the use of CS gas; how both ATF and FBI officials tried and failed to cover up their agencies’ mistakes; where David Koresh plagiarized his infamous prophecies; and direct links between the Branch Davidian tragedy and the modern militia movement in America. Notorious conspiracist Alex Jones is a part of the Waco story. So much is new and stunning. Guinn puts you alongside the ATF agents as they embarked on the disastrous initial assault, unaware that the Davidians knew they were coming and were armed and prepared to resist. His you-are-there narrative continues to the final assault and its momentous consequences. Drawing on this new information, including several eyewitness accounts, Guinn again does what he did with his bestselling books about Charles Manson and Jim Jones, revealing “gripping” (Houston Chronicle) new details about a story that we thought we knew.

A "New York Times "bestseller, Jeff Guinn's definitive, myth-busting account of the most famous gunfight in American history reveals who Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons and McLaurys really were and what the shootout was all about.
On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral would shape how future generations came to view the Old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became the stuff of legends, symbolic of a frontier populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones. It's a colorful story--but the truth is even better.
Drawing on new material from private collections--including diaries, letters, and Wyatt Earp's own hand-drawn sketch of the shootout's conclusion--as well as archival research, Jeff Guinn gives us a startlingly different and far more fascinating picture of what actually happened that day in Tombstone and why

The definitive account of the disastrous siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, featuring never-before-seen documents, photographs, and interviews, from former investigative reporter and bestselling author Jeff Guinn. Waco breaks new ground that will change the perception of the dramatic events that happened in Waco, Texas, in 1993. Among other revelations, the book shows how David Koresh directly based his famous End Time prophecies on the writings of a previous "prophet" laying claim to the name Koresh-Cyrus Teed, in Fort Myers, Florida, in the late 1890s. More than a dozen former AFT agents who participated in the initial February 28, 1993 raid on Mount Carmel speak for the first time on the record about the poor decisions of their raid commanders that led to this deadly confrontation. They also provided Guinn with documents and photographs that have never been published. An FBI agent/analyst who was involved in the fifty-one-day siege offers fresh information about why the FBI agent in charge chose to end the siege with the use of CS gas and about a failed FBI cover-up afterward. There is also documentation of the direct links between the Branch Davidian tragedy and the modern militia movement in America-notorious conspiracist Alex Jones is a part of the Waco story. Jeff Guinn puts you right alongside the ATF agents as they embarked on the disastrous initial assault, unaware that the Davidians knew they were coming and were armed and prepared to resist-which the agents had been told would not happen. Drawing on new eyewitness accounts, Jeff Guinn again does what he did with his bestselling books about Charles Manson and Jim Jones, shedding new light on a story that everyone thinks they know.

An "engagingly written" (The Wall Street Journal) account of the "Punitive Expedition" of 1916 that brought Pancho Villa and Gen. John J. Pershing into conflict, and whose reverberations continue in the Southwestern US to this day. Jeff Guinn, chronicler of the Southwestern US and of American undesirables (Bonnie and Clyde, Charles Manson, and Jim Jones) tells the "riveting and supremely entertaining narrative" (S.C. Gwynne, New York Times bestselling author of Empire of the Summer Moon) of Pancho Villa's bloody raid on a small US border town that sparked a violent conflict with the US. The "Punitive Expedition" was launched in retaliation under Pershing's command and brought together the Army, National Guard, and the Texas Rangers-who were little more than organized vigilantes with a profound dislike of Mexicans on both sides of the border. Opposing this motley military brigade was Villa, a guerrilla fighter who commanded an ever-changing force of conscripts in northern Mexico. The American expedition was the last action by the legendary African American "Buffalo Soldiers." It was also the first time the Army used automobiles and trucks, which were of limited value in Mexico, a country with no paved roads or gas stations. Curtiss Jenny airplanes did reconnaissance, another first. One era of warfare was coming to a close as another was beginning. But despite some bloody encounters, the Punitive Expedition eventually withdrew without capturing Villa. Today Anglos and Latinos in Columbus, New Mexico, where Villa's raid took place, commemorate those events, but with differing emotions. And although the bloodshed has ended, the US-Mexico border remains as vexed and volatile an issue as ever.

A "fascinating slice of rarely considered American history" (Booklist)-the story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison-whose annual summer sojourns introduced the road trip to our culture and made the automobile an essential part of modern life. In 1914 Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year Ford, Edison, and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on. Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers, and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America's roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. Cars were unreliable and the roads were even worse. But newspaper coverage of these trips was extensive, and as cars and roads improved, the summer trip by automobile soon became a desired element of American life. The Vagabonds is "a portrait of America's burgeoning love affair with the automobile" (NPR) but it also sheds light on the important relationship between the older Edison and the younger Ford, who once worked for the famous inventor. The road trips made the automobile ubiquitous and magnified Ford's reputation, even as Edison's diminished. The automobile would transform the American landscape, the American economy, and the American way of life and Guinn brings this seminal moment in history to vivid life.

The "New York Times" bestselling, authoritative account of the life of Charles Manson, filled with surprising new information and previously unpublished photographs: "A riveting, almost Dickensian narrative...four stars" ("People").
More than forty years ago Charles Manson and his mostly female commune killed nine people, among them the pregnant actress Sharon Tate. It was the culmination of a criminal career that author Jeff Guinn traces back to Manson's childhood. Guinn interviewed Manson's sister and cousin, neither of whom had ever previously cooperated with an author. Childhood friends, cellmates, and even some members of the Manson family have provided new information about Manson's life. Guinn has made discoveries about the night of the Tate murders, answering unresolved questions, such as why one person near the scene of the crime was spared.
"Manson" puts the killer in the context of the turbulent late sixties, an era of race riots and street protests when authority in all its forms was under siege. Guinn shows us how Manson created and refined his message to fit the times, persuading confused young women (and a few men) that he had the solutions to their problems. At the same time he used them to pursue his long-standing musical ambitions. His frustrated ambitions, combined with his bizarre race-war obsession, would have lethal consequences.
Guinn's book is a "tour de force of a biography..."Manson" stands as a definitive work: important for students of criminology, human behavior, popular culture, music, psychopathology, and sociopathology...and compulsively readable" (Ann Rule, "The New York Times Book Review").

In 1935 Betsy Throckmorton's father lures her from a New York job with Time magazine back to Claybelle, Texas, with the promise that she can be the editor of his Claybelle Standard-Times. Betsy brings along her husband, Ted Winton, an easterner and Yale graduate to whom she is constantly explaining Texas. Ted will run Ben Throckmorton's radio station, KVAT, where Booty and Them Others sing in rivalry with the better known WBAP Light Crust Doughboys. In Texas, it's the middle of the Depression and the Drought. And Prohibition is barely over, liquor still a controversy. Every city has its hobo camp, and Claybelle has the Star of Hope Mission. But it is also the time of new oil money, high living, infidelity, and tangled love triangles. Betsy and Ted chain-smoke and drink often and long, they wouldn't miss a Paschal High School or TCU football game, they party at the Casino on Jacksboro Highway, and dine at Claybelle's Shadylawn Country Club. Betsy is a serious journalist though, and she sets out to change the paper, clashing with the managing editor when she claims international not state news belongs on page one. She clashes with the columnists when she tries to sharpen their leads. The Texas Murder Machine becomes her big story, when she suspects that Texas Rangers may be killing innocent young men to collect rewards offered by the Texas Bankers Association. Betsy's journalistic determination leads to a personal tragedy that changes her life forever--and makes her a determined, relentless newswoman. Fast Copy is a page-turner that combines romantic comedy with the best of the thriller genre. But it's much more. Dan Jenkins captures Texas in the mid-1930s with a clarity that brings it alive, and his affection for Texas, Fort Worth, and TCU are revealed on every page. Only a native like Jenkins would include the minute details of a TCU-SMU game, the new zephyr stainless steel railroad train, the T&P railroad station, the Fort Worth Cats, and LeGrave Field. His portrait of Claybelle and its leading society folks is tongue-in-cheek funny and right on the mark. Texans should treasure this book for years to come.

Bestselling author Jeff Guinn combines exhaustive research with surprising, newly discovered material to tell the real tale of two kids from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more important, fame. "Go Down Together "has it all--true romance, rebellion against authority, bullets flying, cars crashing, and, in the end, a dramatic death at the hands of a celebrity lawman.
This is the real story of Bonnie and Clyde and their troubled times, delivered with cinematic sweep by a masterful storyteller.

After more than forty years, Charles Manson continues to mystify and fascinate us. One of the most notorious criminals in American history, Manson and members of his mostly female commune killed nine people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Now, drawing on new information, bestselling author Jeff Guinn tells the definitive story of how this ordinary delinquent became a murderer. Mansonhelps us understand what obsessed him and, most terrifying of all, how he managed to persuade others to kill. Guinn interviewed Manson's sister and cousin, neither of whom has ever previously cooperated with an author. Childhood friends, cellmates, and even some members of the Manson Family have provided new information about Manson's life. Guinn has made discoveries about the night of the Tate murders, answering unresolved questions, such as why one person on the property was spared. There are even photographs of Manson's childhood and youth that have never previouslybeen seen outside private family albums. Putting Manson in the context of his times, the turbulent end of the Sixties, Guinn shows how Manson represented the dark side of a generation. He came to Los Angeles hoping to get a recording contract, and the murders were directly related to his musical ambitions, although he cloaked them in a bizarre race-war theory. He was, in the words of one person who knew him, just like many other rock star wannabes-except that he was a killer.

2018 Edgar Award Finalist—Best Fact Crime “A thoroughly readable, thoroughly chilling account of a brilliant con man and his all-too vulnerable prey” (The Boston Globe)—the definitive story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre, the largest murder-suicide in American history, by the New York Times bestselling author of Manson. In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially mixed, and he was a leader in the early civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California, where he got involved in electoral politics and became a prominent Bay Area leader. But underneath the surface lurked a terrible darkness. In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his early days as an idealistic minister to a secret life of extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing, before the fateful decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Guinn provides stunning new details of the events leading to the fatal day in November, 1978 when more than nine hundred people died—including almost three hundred infants and children—after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink. Guinn examined thousands of pages of FBI files on the case, including material released during the course of his research. He traveled to Jones’s Indiana hometown, where he spoke to people never previously interviewed, and uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors. He even visited the Jonestown site with the same pilot who flew there the day that Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on Jones’s orders. The Road to Jonestown is “the most complete picture to date of this tragic saga, and of the man who engineered it…The result is a disturbing portrait of evil—and a compassionate memorial to those taken in by Jones’s malign charisma” (San Francisco Chronicle).

From 1889 to 1964, the Fort Worth Panthers--unofficially nicknamed and always known as the Cats--represented the essence of baseball in America. In their early seasons they reflected the outraged pride of the South and West in a bitter rivalry with the northeastern baseball powers, a regional disaffection whose roots stretched back to the Civil War. (The first official baseball game in Texas was played just after the war; the competing Texas teams were nicknamed the Stonewall Jacksons and the R. E. Lees). The Cats franchise was finally dissolved when major league baseball completed its national expansion by placing a team in nearby Arlington.
In between, the Cats set professional sports records that have never been equaled, including winning the Texas League title six years in a row and establishing themselves as perhaps the most famous minor league team in baseball history. From vintage Panthers such as power-hitting first baseman Clarence "Big Boy" Kraft and colorful Hall-of-Fame manager Rogers Hornsby to more modern Cats heroes such as Duke Snider, Carl Erskine, and Maury Wills, Fort Worth and the baseball-obsessed Southwest formed a high profile partnership that even survived a season when the spectator stands burned one day and the playing field was flooded a week later. Cats fans wouldn't be denied; they sat around the field on folding chairs, and no games were postponed.
Partially oral history, "When Panthers Roared" includes interviews with baseball greats Hank Aaron, Wally Moon, Dick Williams, Maury Wills, and co-author Bobby Bragan. Williams and Wills were Cats mainstays; Bragan managed the team during its great post-WW II years when baseball guru Branch Rickey made Fort Worth part of the Brooklyn Dodger farm system and stocked it with his finest young athletes.
But during the Cats heyday, there were just sixteen major league teams who played out of ten U.S. cities. "When Panthers Roared" captures the excitement and pride the minor-league Cats brought to Texas and the Southwest. It was a time when, Bobby Bragan insists, "any man lucky enough to be a Fort Worth Cat was as proud of that as he would have been to play for the New York Yankees."
"When Panthers Roared" is lavishly illustrated through the cooperation of Mark Presswood, whose sports collection features Cats memorabilia. Additional short interviews feature the late Joe DiMaggio, Vincent Devaney, and Leo Durocher.

This enchanting Christmas Chronicles classic combines solid historical fact with glorious legend to deliver the definitive story of Santa Claus. For anyone who has ever wondered...you're right to believe in him!In "The Autobiography of Santa Claus", Santa reveals his story for the first time. Nicholas (his real name) was born in the Middle Eastern country of Lycia to wealthy parents who died when he was young. The kind people of Lycia taught him the lessons of goodness and generosity, which he began to practice as a child by sharing his wealth with those in need. As a young man, Nicholas realised that this generosity had bestowed upon him special abilities to distribute his presents to deserving children everywhere. And so it was that Santa broadened his gift-giving and spread his message to many others who also valued his belief in the goodness of giving. Families will delight in each chapter of this Christmas classic - one per each cold December night leading up to Christmas! And who is better to lead us through seventeen centuries of Christmas magic than good ol' Saint Nick himself?

From the moment they first cut a swathe of crime across 1930s America, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker have been glamorised in print, on screen and in legend. The reality of their brief and catastrophic lives is very different -- and far more fascinating. Combining exhaustive research with surprising, newly discovered material, author Jeff Guinn tells the real story of two youngsters from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more important, fame. Thanks in great part to surviving relatives of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who provided Guinn with access to never-before-published family documents and photographs, this book reveals the truth behind the myth, told with cinematic sweep and unprecedented insight by a master storyteller.

Classic Christmas Recipes from Saint Nicholas Himself Special delivery from the North Pole: Santa's favorite Christmas recipes from around the world In this one-of-a-kind Christmas cookbook, Saint Nicholas himself invites readers to pull up their chairs to his dining table at the North Pole and enjoy more than seventy of his most-cherished holiday recipes. Featuring classic American holiday dishes as well as mouthwatering Christmas fare from all over the world--Santa's favorite finds from his gift-giving travels--Santa's North Pole Cookbook guides readers in creating holiday meals that are as delicious as they are rich in Christmas tradition. With classic Christmas recipes from Weihnachtsgans mit Rotund Grunkohl und Kartoffelklossen (German Christmas Goose with Green and Red Cabbage and Potato Dumplings) and Santa's Favorite Rosemary Turkey to Christopsomo, the ancient Greek holiday bread that families traditionally decorate with sketches of their everyday lives, and traditional Christmas Plum Pudding, Santa's North Pole Cookbook is a must-have for anyone who delights in preparing delectable holiday food for the family. Throughout history, winter solstice and later Christmas have been occasions for special celebration. In this book, Santa also illuminates the fascinating history and lore that surround these popular Christmas dishes and shares with readers the wonderful stories of how and where he personally encountered them in his Christmas travels.

Naked Came the Stranger set the format, but not always the tone or subject matter, for a whole string of books that appeared in the 1970s. Called collaborative or serial novels, the multi-author works were set in the suburbs, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Florida, the American West, but never in Texas. Now, a dozen Texas authors have gotten together to create a good old-fashioned western novel. Each contributing author will write a chapter that builds on the work that precedes his or her chapter. The plot features Noah, a plantation slave who escapes and makes his way to the Union forces and, finally, Texas, where he establishes a small ranch, runs a few cattle, and, with wife Nelly, begins to raise a family. But Noah, who has taken the name Freeman and named his ranch Free Land, cannot leave his past behind. The slave catcher Quint Carpenter is the local sheriff, and he's out for blood - specifically Noah's blood - after Noah's sister kills Quint's younger son. And carpetbagger Bear Coltrain, who once wanted to kidnap Noah and sell him back into slavery, now wants Noah's land. And then, John Malone comes along - Noah once saved the former cavalry officer's life, and he wants to repay his debt. Can he help when someone kidnaps Noah's baby girl? Can he help save the ranch - and, finally, save Noah's life? At press time for this catalog, half the chapters remain yet to be written, so the plot may change some - but that's the magic of a project such as this one. In cooperation with TCU Press, the ""Fort Worth Star-Telegram"" announced a contest in which the winner became one of the contributing authors. Entries were posted on the ""Star-Telegram"" web page, where the best three entries were chosen by popular vote. The staff of TCU Press chose the winner from among those entries. She is Mary Dittoe Kelly, and this will be her first published writing. A celebration at Fort Worth's Bass Hall will bring all the authors together onstage to talk about the work, and the joys and problems of working in collaboration. Former ""Star-Telegram"" book editor, Jeff Guinn will moderate.

Dan Jenkins' second best-known novel, "Baja Oklahoma," features protagonist Juanita Hutchins, who can cuss and politically commentate with the best of Jenkins' male protagonists. Still convincingly female, though in no way dumb and girly, fortyish Juanita serves drinks to the colorful crew patronizing Herb's Cafe in South Fort Worth, worries herself sick over a hot-to-trot daughter proving too fond of drugs and the dealers who sell them, endures a hypochondriac mother whose whinings would justify murder, dates a fellow middle-ager whose connections with the oil industry are limited to dipstick duty at his filling station--and, by the way, she also hopes to become a singer-songwriter in the real country tradition of Bob Wills and Willie Nelson. That Juanita is way too old to remain a kid with a crazy dream doesn't matter much to her. In between handing out longneck beers to customer-acquaintances battling hot flashes and deciding when boyfriend Slick is finally going to get lucky, Juanita keeps jotting down lyrics reflective of hard-won wisdom and setting them to music composed on her beloved Martin guitar. Too many of her early songwriting results are one-dimensional or derivative, but finally she hits on something both original and heartfelt: a tribute to her beloved home state, warts and all.