In the mid 1970s, a band of men with little expertise in the oilfield defied the hard ground of Giddings, Texas, to search for oil in a barren, poverty-stricken land that was littered with dry holes, shattered hopes, and empty pockets. Max Williams, the former hot-shot basketball player at SMU, and Irv Deal had been in high-dollar real estate until the real estate market collapsed. Both were facing the wrath of hard times. Pat Holloway was a lawyer who operated drilling funds but had never tested the ill-fated Austin Chalk. He drilled the most and earned the most but lost it all in the shady confines of a Dallas courtroom. Jimmy Luecke was a highway patrolman who stopped Holloway for speeding one night and promised not to take him to jail if the lawyer/oilman would agree to drill on his family’s land. Bill Shuford was right out of college and more interested in finding the next beer joint than his next job. Jim Dobos was a constable who used his badge to lease land, struck it rich, and was found with a gunshot in his head. Was it murder or suicide? Clayton Williams was the only big-time oilman in the bunch, but in the beginning, he made the mistake of employing the wrong geologist. Only those who used the geologic genius of Ray Holifield found oil. Holifield had cracked the code of the chalk. Gamble in the Devil’s Chalk is the true story of their fights, their feuds, their trials, their tribulations, and their triumphs as they discovered the second largest oilfield in the United States during the past half century. Once they came, Giddings would never be the same again.

Gamble in the Devil's Chalk: The Battle for Oil in A Field of Broken Dreams

History

Caleb Pirtle III

Americas

Venture Galleries

As a combat correspondent with the 10th  Public Information Detachment, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Robert Spangler of Mineral Wells, Texas, spent much of his year in Vietnam armed with his notebook, camera and M-16 rifle. He often boarded choppers for combat assaults, and "humped" his rucksack on long missions in the field, documenting the lives of infantrymen around him. He also photographed combat medics in dustoff choppers picking up wounded; artillerymen at their guns, soldiers manning far-flung fire bases, and life in Vietnamese villages. He was also the first photographer to document the destruction of Fire Support Base Mary Ann the day after Viet Cong sappers killed 30 and wounded 82 Americans in a night attack. The photographs and captions in this 209-page book portray the common man at war, trying to survive one year in a vicious, and divisive conflict.

In the Shadow of Danger: Photographs of the Vietnam War 1970-71

Gary D. Ford

Military

Lillian Prestridge and her husband Bill are introduced to Eli, a standard Poodle when he leads them to the scene of a heinous murder in their normally quiet, gated community in the heart of East Texas. Lillian lends her investigative instincts to her son Jake, County Sheriff, and his best friend, Grant Perryman, Chief of Security at Leisure Lake as they try to solve not one murder, but two, in the first of Linda Pirtle’s Christian novels: The Mah Jongg Murders.

The Mah Jongg Murders (The Games We Play)

Religion & Spirituality

Pirtle, Mrs. Linda G

Christian Books & Bibles

Missouri Roughneck is the story of a group of Depression-Era residents of East Texas who come together to spud a wildcat well that leads to love and losses at the hand of the fickle mistress known as black gold.

Missouri Roughneck

Literature & Fiction

Hyde, Mrs. Harryett

Genre Fiction

Just as retired G-man John Hixon recovers from wounds incurred from a security detail in which he saved the life of billionaire investor Julian F. Thibaut, Thibaut calls him again.  This time, his talents, intuition, and experience are put to the test as he attempts to protect seven of Thibaut’s friends while investigating a murder. In this, his second novel, FCEtier brings eight new characters into play along with several from his previous novel, The Tourist Killer. Hixon and company, along with his loyal K-9 corps, must defend their home turf as they seek the truth behind international conspiracies and encounter the seat of ultimate power -- the puppeteers who control the world’s finances. Hixon and company discover that those same powerful forces who control the world’s money also control the destinies of those who oppose them. FCEtier takes readers on a breathless and perilous trek through the jungles of politics and the palaces of power.

The Presidents Club

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Etier, FC

Thrillers & Suspense

The Warrior with Alzheimer's: The Battle for Justice (A Shot Glass Reynolds book)

Woodfin, Stephen

Times are hard along the Sabine River, and the little East Texas town of Ashland is crumbling under the weight of the Great Depression. Families are broke and hungry. For many, their last meal may well have been their last meal. Families are giving up and leaving town. Everyone knows the fate that awaits the scattered farms. No one can save Ashland. It is as isolated as the back side of a blue moon. Into town comes Doc Bannister wearing a straw boater and a white suit. He is the miracle man. He has a homemade doodlebug machine that, he says, can find oil and make them all rich. Oil, he swears, lies beneath the blistered farmstead of Eudora Durant. She thinks Doc is a flim flam man. The Sheriff believes he is a con artist. Both are convinced that Doc has come to town to swindle every dime he can get before hitting the road again. Ashland knows Doc may be crooked, but he has brought hope to a town that had no hope. Eudora has everything Doc wants. She is a beautiful woman who owns cheap land. In Ashland, she is known as the scarlet woman. Whispers say she murdered her husband. No one has seen him since the night they heard a shotgun blast on her farm. The town wants oil. Doc wants Eudora. But Eudora is too independent and stubborn to fall for the charms of a silver-tongued charlatan. She holds the fate of Ashland in her hands. Will she let Doc drill? Is there really oil lying deep beneath her sun-baked land? Can Doc find it? Or is he more interested in finding love than oil? What happens when a man with a checkered past comes face to face with a woman whose past is as mysterious as his?

Back Side of a Blue Moon (The Boomtown Saga)

Pirtle III, Caleb

"What'll we do with this huckleberry?" asks the Cowboy whose Winchester presses again Byron's belt buckle. "We take 'em to the boss. He'll figure out what to do with him," answers the Segundo. The Bierman brothers deal with characters the likes of which only the West breeds and nurturers: the Earp brothers, Texas John Slaughter, Governor F.A. Tritle, Ike Clanton, Curly Bill Brocius, Al Sieber, and La Ara a. "If there are those who can't defend themselves and wind up vulnerable, then Arizona Territory ain't the place for them to stay," says Byron. "It is what it is." Arizona Territory, 1880s, is enough to challenge anyone, but little do Byron and Braxton Bierman know that every turn on the trail brings them to defining moments. From Tombstone to Prescott, and Springerville to Phoenix, they face friends, foes, and nature. Braxton's last line in the story is, "Brother, have I got a lot to tell you." Reader, The Arizonan has a lot to tell you too.

The Arizonan (The Bierman Saga)

Burgdorf, William

I grew up in a world occupied by storytellers. Their stories were better than books. Their stories became books. After all, life is just one story piled on top of another with page numbers. In those days, storytellers did not know they were telling stories. They were simply carrying on a conversation. I never outgrew their stories. Nor did I ever stop listening to conversations that hopscotched their way along the side of a wayward road. The voices stay with me. So do the stories they told me. The voices may come from down the road apiece, at the counter of a diner, on the bar stool in a beer joint, sitting in the front yard of a mountain cabin, along a stretch of spun-sugar sand, back in the darkness of a pine thicket, amidst the downtown traffic jam of a city at sundown, or from the faint memories of a distant past. Everyone who crosses my path has a story to tell. It may be personal. It may be something that happened last week or the year before. It may have been handed down for more than a single generation. It may even be true, but who knows anymore? For decades I've collected the stories I hear and can't forget those whose names are often long forgotten. But at one time in my life, they came my way, and I wrote down their confessions from the road.

Confessions From the Road: Notes from a Wayfaring Stranger's Journal

Travel

Pirtle III, Mr. Caleb

United States

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