Bootlegger's Boy


Book Description

The controversial football coach recounts his battles with the NCAA as leader of the Oklahoma Sooners, when he was accused of unethical recruitment practices and other violations




Bootlegger's Daughter


Book Description

This smart, sassy series introduces Deborah Knott, candidate for district judge--and daughter of an infamous bootlegger. Deborah's campaigning is interrupted when disturbing new evidence surrrounding a murder that has never been solved surfaces and she is implored to investigate.




Billy Boy


Book Description

Not since Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show has a novelist captured the poignant contradictions of young manhood in the American West the way Bud Shrake does in Billy Boy. And no novel has ever combined history, spirituality and golf into so potent a triumph of the human spirit. There are tough times ahead for sixteen-year-old Billy. He's just come to Fort Worth with his father, Troy, after the death of his mother back in Albuquerque. Troy's drinking and gambling will leave them all but penniless, and he'll soon move on and abandon Billy in this strange town to fend for himself. With only a vague idea of how he's going to live, Billy heads over to Colonial Country Club, where he hopes he can get work as a caddie and where he just might see his hero, Ben Hogan. What he finds there, under the watchful eye of his guardian spirit, teaches him unforgettable lessons about golf, life, love and honor. In Billy Boy, longtime novelist and screenwriter Bud Shrake takes us back to the early 1950s, in a story thick with the Texas dust. Hardscrabble Billy, tough as he thinks he is and smarter than he knows, makes a place for himself behind the walls of privilege at Colonial. He first draws the approval, then the ire, of the club's most eccentric millionaire member, while his looks and manner draw the attention of the millionaire's beautiful granddaughter -- to the displeasure of her boyfriend, the club champion. Billy survives a fierce initiation and a dreadful scene with his drunken father -- but most important, he comes in contact with two of the greatest figures in the history of golf in Texas, Ben Hogan and John Bredemus, each of whom takes Billy under his wing for different reasons and with different results. Shrake skillfully weaves these historical figures and his richly drawn characters into the fabric of the town and the tenor of the time. Billy must face down his fears and doubts, and he does so in a climactic confrontation that combines the yearnings of youth with the redemption of the spirit. Billy Boy is an unforgettable novel of coming of age in a time and a place filled with mythic echoes and frontier dreams.




The Judge


Book Description




Sailor


Book Description

Acclaimed novelist of The Kind One and screenwriter of such films as One False Move and The Gift, Tom Epperson brings the violence-soaked world of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and the heroism of Jack Schaefer's Shane together to create an iconic action thriller for the twenty-first century. Gina fell for the wrong guy. Joe came into her life promising her everything, and he gave it to her, along with a world of hell. But Gina was stronger than Joe realized. After years of suffering the terror of being married to a criminal, she took the one thing he ever gave her that she wanted—her son, Luke. Then she turned the bastard in. With her husband behind bars, her father-in-law will stop at nothing for revenge. He wants his grandson back, the heir to his criminal empire. With a vast network that stretches across the country, every favor is called in to kill Gina and return Luke to his grandfather. Gina can trust no one. Even the U.S. Marshall assigned to keep Gina and Luke safe is on the payroll. So with a gun and stolen diamonds in her purse, and derelicts, the law, and hit men on her tail, Gina takes Luke and runs. Los Angeles was only supposed to be a quick stop—sleep, eat, and continue running—but then they meet Gray.... He says he's a sailor, but he seems to be hiding a lot. And when the time comes, he's the only thing standing between her and the grave. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Wishbone


Book Description

The Oklahoma Sooners dominated the world of college football during the 1950s. Under the leadership of Coach Bud Wilkinson, the team won three national titles and established an astounding record of forty-seven straight victories that still stands today. Yet by 1959, Wilkinson’s Sooners were showing signs of vulnerability, marking the start of a new and challenging era in Oklahoma football. Then along came a new offensive strategy, and OU began to dominate college football once again. In Wishbone, veteran journalist Wann Smith provides an in-depth account of Sooner football from the team’s final years under Wilkinson through its remarkable turnaround under Coach Barry Switzer. At the heart of this story is the phenomenal success of the Wishbone offense—a hybrid offshoot of the Split-t formation that Wilkinson employed so successfully in the 1950s. Though not without its risks, the Wishbone offense changed the face of college football and was a key factor in Oklahoma’s resurgence in the 1970s with Switzer at the helm. Drawing on firsthand accounts from coaches, players, and university administrators, many never before published, Smith takes us behind the scenes during this exciting comeback period to reveal not just what happened but why and how it happened. And he brings to life the personalities who played pivotal roles in the team’s renewed success, including Jack Mildren, Greg Pruitt, Joe Washington, Billy Sims, and any, many others. Sooner fans, indeed all fans of college football, will relish this account of the remaking of a football powerhouse and its return to glory.




The Bootlegger's Bride


Book Description

A teenaged war widow on a mission finds a disillusioned WWI veteran. As Prohibition begins, Grace searches Bryeton for Aiden Palmer, the man she truly wanted to marry when she was forced to marry another. Seeking cash and excitement running bootleg liquor for an unknown investor, Aiden is jaded and not easily convinced Grace still loves him. To be together, they will need to learn to trust again, out-maneuver her power-hungry brother, and outrun fast competition. And the clock is ticking.




A Bootlegger's Paradise


Book Description




Boy's Life


Book Description

An Alabama boy’s innocence is shaken by murder and madness in the 1960s South in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Swan Song. It’s 1964 in idyllic Zephyr, Alabama. People either work for the paper mill up the Tecumseh River, or for the local dairy. It’s a simple life, but it stirs the impressionable imagination of twelve-year-old aspiring writer Cory Mackenson. He’s certain he’s sensed spirits whispering in the churchyard. He’s heard of the weird bootleggers who lurk in the dark outside of town. He’s seen a flood leave Main Street crawling with snakes. Cory thrills to all of it as only a young boy can. Then one morning, while accompanying his father on his milk route, he sees a car careen off the road and slowly sink into fathomless Saxon’s Lake. His father dives into the icy water to rescue the driver, and finds a beaten corpse, naked and handcuffed to the steering wheel—a copper wire tightened around the stranger’s neck. In time, the townsfolk seem to forget all about the unsolved murder. But Cory and his father can’t. Their search for the truth is a journey into a world where innocence and evil collide. What lies before them is the stuff of fear and awe, magic and madness, fantasy and reality. As Cory wades into the deep end of Zephyr and all its mysteries, he’ll discover that while the pleasures of childish things fade away, growing up can be a strange and beautiful ride. “Strongly echoing the childhood-elegies of King and Bradbury, and every bit their equal,” Boy’s Life, a winner of both the Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Awards, represents a brilliant blend of mystery and rich atmosphere, the finest work of one of today’s most accomplished writers (Kirkus Reviews).




Jet


Book Description

The weekly source of African American political and entertainment news.




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