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Timmy Overton of Austin and Jerry Ray James of Odessa were football stars who traded athletics for lives of crime. The original rebels without causes, nihilists with Cadillacs and Elvis hair, the Overton gang and their associates formed a ragtag white trash mafia that bedazzled Austin law enforcement for most of the 1960s. Tied into a loose network of crooked lawyers, pimps and used car dealers who became known as the "traveling criminals," they burglarized banks and ran smuggling and prostitution rings all over Texas. Author Jesse Sublett presents a detailed account of these Austin miscreants, who rose to folk hero status despite their violent criminal acts.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Galveston was a beacon of opportunity on the Texas Gulf Coast. Dubbed the "Wall Street of the Southwest," its laissez-faire reputation called those hungry for success to its shores. Led by brothers Salvatore and Rosario at the height of Prohibition, the Maceo family answered that call and changed the Oleander City forever. They built an island empire of gambling, smuggling and prostitution that lasted three decades. Housed in their nightclubs frequented by stars like Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington, they endeared themselves to their Galveston neighbors by sharing their profits, imitating crime syndicates in their native Sicily. Though certainly no saints, the Maceos helped bring prosperity to a community weary from a century of turmoil. Discover the history of Galveston's famous crime family with authors Nicole Boatman, Dr. Scott Belshaw and Texas historian Richard McCaslin.

The Vaudeville Theater Ambush of 1884 went down in history as one of the most famous gunfights in San Antonio, but the killing that night of Ben Thompson and John King Fisher, two of the most notorious pistoleers of the day, became something of a mystery. The two men entered the theatre just before midnight on March 11, and less than an hour later, both lay dead, shot down in what for all accounts was a true massacre. The responsible gunmen never were prosecuted for their crimes, and Thompson and Fisher--a mere mention of either man's name was enough to put the fear of death in any opponent--have been widely ignored since. Now, historian G.R. Williamson brings to light the mystery and the myths surrounding these men and their infamous deaths in Texas Pistoleers.

After Monroe Edwards died in Sing Sing prison in 1847, penny dreadfuls memorialized him as the most celebrated American forger until the turn of the century. With a bizarre biography too complicated for easy history, his critical contributions to Texas settlement, revolution and annexation were inextricably mired in his activities as a slave smuggler and confidence man. Author Lora-Marie Bernard unravels the unbelievable story of one of the most notorious criminal adventurers ever to set foot on the soil of the Lone Star State.