An hour's drive south of Dallas, in the tiny community of Penelope (population 211), Carlton Stowers found the perfect vantage point from which to view a small town as it came together around their six-man high-school football team. Here, where shopping for groceries is a forty-five-minute round-trip drive and there is no stoplight on Main Street, he followed the hapless Penelope Wolverines in their quest to win their second game in four years since reviving their football program after a thirty-seven-year hiatus. But even as the team struggled, the entire town still came out to show its support every Friday night. Why? Because as one Texas writer recently said, "Texas high school football is a six-point favorite over Sunday-go-to-meetin' in most small towns." A wide-open game in which teams sprint up and down the field and where the combined score can typically exceed one hundred points, six-man football was invented in Nebraska in 1934. At its peak in 1953, 30,000 teams across the country and in Canada competed in the sport. Though there are fewer teams now, it is still played in states as far flung as Texas, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, and Kansas, among others. A poignant story of a small town, and its unwavering support-through thick and a lot of thin-of the winless Wolverines, Where Dreams Die Hard is a warm and revealing slice of life in the American heartland and of a culture fast disappearing.

Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team

Sports & Outdoors

Stowers, Carlton

Football (American)

Da Capo Press

Down Farm Road 308, an hour's drive south of Dallas, amidst sprawling fields of cotton lies a small community--Penelope, Texas (population 211). Here, where the only thriving businesses are the granary and the post office, unless you count the soft-drink machine in front of the fire station, two-time Edgar Award-winning writer Carlton Stowers discovered a special town that came together, not only to support their six-man highschool football team--the Penelope Wolverines--through thick and a lot of thin, but also, and more importantly, each other. Where Dreams Die Hard is a warm and revealing portrait of the American heartland--and of one small town's love affair with the team that unites it. "Through his unforgettable depiction of innocence, goodness, loyalty, and friendship...Carlton Stowers gives us a moving portrait of a community that, in the words of one of the Penelope faithful, is like 'stepping into a Norman Rockwell painting.'" (Billie Letts, author of Where the Heart Is) "High school football in Texas is both sport and religion, and Stowers brilliantly brings this to light in Where Dreams Die Hard." (Jim Dent, author of The Junction Boys)

Now, in his eloquent words, hear mega-football superstar Marcus Allen---Heisman trophy winner, Superbowl MVP, and record-breaking running back--tell his inspiring and unforgettable story, rom his triumphant rise to athletic stardom, to his rocky 11-year relationship with Los Angeles Raiders coach Al Davis, to his controversial friendship with O.J. Simpson, and all the high and low points in between. Marcus on Al Davis: "I could neither understand nor determine why Al Davis had declared war against me. But for all the motives suggested, none involved the possibility that the issue might be racial. Al Davis was many things that I didn't admire, but he was no bigot." Marcus on O.J. Simpson: "I am and forever will be forever be tortured by the loss of two people who were my friends; one murdered, one now forced to live a lifetime being blamed for tragedy." Marcus on Football "It teaches hard lessons about success and failure, joy and disappointment. And when played well, it has a poetry all its own."

Marcus: The Autobiography of Marcus Allen

Allen, Marcus

Biographies & Memoirs

St.Martin's Press

Describes how, after supposedly dying due to natural causes, two-year-old Renee Goode's death was vindicated when her mother, grandmother, and a police investigator took on the case and discovered that the little girl had been murdered by her own father.

To The Last Breath: Three Women Fight For The Truth Behind A Child's Tragic Murder

Self-Help

Motivational

Scream at the Sky: Five Texas Murders and One Man's Crusade for Justice

Carlton Stowers, the two-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling master of true crime, is back. Scream at the Sky is his masterful chronicle of one man's murderous career, and another man's sworn promise to deliver justice and closure to the people of Texas. Wichita Falls, Texas, was home to a hundred thousand people in the last months of 1984. That winter was harsh, as the normally arid Texas plains gave way to ominous dark clouds that delivered freezing sleet and rain. But a much darker force was looming, and soon the quiet town was besieged by a faceless evil--and its young women were dying because of it. In the next seventeen months five women were found brutally beaten and murdered, their young lives cut short and their bodies left haphazardly where they fell. In the years that followed, grieving families fruitlessly sought answers. A haunted district attorney chased every lead only to meet one dead end after another. And the killer's identity remained unknown to the ravaged townspeople. Then, fourteen years after the killing started, an investigator who had been assigned the cold case brought to it a renewed dedication, and came upon a chance discovery. Searching through the yellowed case files, he caught a minor detail that suggested one more suspect. Faryion Wardrip was an unhappily married family man who drowned his anger in substance abuse and violent fantasies. But for five unfortunate families, the drugs sometimes took over and the fantasies became realities. Investigator John Little followed his instincts and tirelessly ruled out every possibility until he was left with but one conclusion: Faryion Wardrip was the serial killer who had eluded his office for so long. How he tracked down Wardrip and used the legal system to beat the killer at his own game of deception is a remarkable story of justice served.

History

Americas

Former Texas prison chaplain Rev. Carroll Pickett, working with two time Edgar Award-winner and New York Times best selling author Carlton Stowers, provides this eloquent, unflinching look at capital punishment. Within These Walls is the powerful memoir of Rev. Pickett, who spent fifteen years as the death house chaplain at "The Walls," the Huntsville unit of the Texas prison system. In that capacity Rev. Pickett ministered to 95 men before they were put to death by lethal injection. They came with sinister nicknames like "The Candy Man" and "The Good Samaritan Killer," some contrite, some angry-a few who might even have been innocent. All of them found in Rev. Pickett their last chance for an unbiased confessor who would look at them only as fellow humans, not simply as the convicted criminals the rest of society had already dismissed them as. This first-hand experience gave Rev. Pickett the unique insight needed to write an impassioned statement on the realities of capital punishment in America. The result is a thought-provoking and compelling book that takes the reader inside the criminal mind, inside the execution chamber, and inside the heart of a remarkable man who shares his thoughts and observations not only about capital punishment, but about the dark world of prison society.

Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain

Pickett, Carroll

Leaders & Notable People

Now, in his eloquent words, hear mega-football superstar Marcus Allen---Heisman trophy winner, Superbowl MVP, and record-breaking running back--tell his inspiring and unforgettable story, rom his triumphant rise to athletic stardom, to his rocky 11-year relationship with Los Angeles Raiders coach Al Davis, to his controversial friendship with O.J. Simpson, and all the high and low points in between.Marcus on Al Davis:"I could neither understand nor determine why Al Davis had declared war against me. But for all the motives suggested, none involved the possibility that the issue might be racial. Al Davis was many things that I didn't admire, but he was no bigot." Marcus on O.J. Simpson:"I am and forever will be forever be tortured by the loss of two people who were my friends; one murdered, one now forced to live a lifetime being blamed for tragedy." Marcus on Football"It teaches hard lessons about success and failure, joy and disappointment. And when played well, it has a poetry all its own."

St. Martin's Paperbacks

On January 22, 1994, two-year old Renee Goode played happily with her sisters and cousin, as the four of them enjoyed an impromptu "slumber party" at the home of her father, Shane Goode. The next day she was dead.
The local medical examiner could not determine the cause of little Renee's death. But her mother Annette and grandmother Sharon were convinced she'd been murdered--and that they knew the identity of Renee's killer: her handsome father, Shane Goode, a manipulative, emotionally abusive man who displayed virtually no interest in Renee--until he took out a $50,000 insurance policy on her life.
With the help of a courageous female police investigator and Assistant DA, Sharon launched a case against Shane and had Renee's tiny coffin, lovingly filled with her favorite stuffed animals, exhumed from its final resting place. And her small corpse revealed what her grandmother had suspected all along: cold, calculating Shane Goode had murdered his own daughter to cash in on her death.
To the Last Breath is the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime.

True Crime

St. Martin's True Crime Classics

An acclaimed true-crime author takes on his toughest project of all-- writing about a murderer who happens to be his son.When a hideous murder makes the headlines, a barrage of questions usually appears in its wake: Why did this happen? Could it have been prevented? What kind of family was the criminal from? Are his parents in some way to blame? Any crime writer worth his salt would attempt to answer these questions-- but how do you address such questions when the killer is your own son?As a single father raising two sons, Carlton Stowers did his best to instill in his boys a healthy sense of right and wrong. But with Anson, his oldest, it would prove to be an ongoing uphill battle. At a young age, Anson began to angrily shun authority, and soon became involved with a number of illicit activities, including drugs, forgery, and theft. After each jail stay, Anson would vow to get clean and start anew. It became a revolving door for both father and son, until Anson, t

Sins of the Son

St. Martin's True Crime

Careless Whispers

When the bodies of three teenagers were found on the shores of Lake Waco, Texas in July, 1982, even seasoned lawmen were taken aback by the savage mutilation and degradation they had been subjected to. Yet only 52 days after the gruesome triple-murder was discovered, frustrated authorities suspended the case indefinitely. Patrol Sergeant Truman Simons, who had been called to the scene that night, saw the carnage first-hand -- and vowed to find the ferocious killer or killers. He soon became a man with a mission, risking his career and his family's safety in search of evidence. Plunging himself into a netherworld of violence and evil, Simons finally got close enough to a murderous ringleader to hear his careless whispers--and ultimately, put him and his three accomplices behind bars for the brutal slayings. Now, in his Edgar Award-winning account of the Lake Waco killings, acclaimed true crime writer Carlton Stowers lays bare the facts behind the tragic crimes, the twisted predators, and the heroic man who broke the investigation--with important updated information based on new developments in the case.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stowers, Carlton. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stowers, Carlton

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stowers, Carlton. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team

Where Dreams Die Hard: A Small American Town and Its Six-Man Football Team

Marcus: The Autobiography of Marcus Allen

To The Last Breath: Three Women Fight For The Truth Behind A Child's Tragic Murder

Scream at the Sky: Five Texas Murders and One Man's Crusade for Justice

Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain

Marcus: The Autobiography of Marcus Allen

To The Last Breath: Three Women Fight For The Truth Behind A Child's Tragic Murder

Sins of the Son

Careless Whispers