{"id":1260,"date":"2018-12-31T16:27:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1260"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:27:45","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:27:45","slug":"glenn-dromgooles-texas-reads-column-appears-weekly-at-lonestarliterary-com-85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1260","title":{"rendered":"Glenn Dromgoole’s Texas Reads column appears weekly at LoneStarLiterary.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

3.25.2018\u00a0\u00a0 James Patterson writes about Texas true crime case<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>James Patterson, the mega-bestselling novelist,<\/span> turns his storytelling talents to true crime, featuring a Texas murder-for-hire case in Murder, Interrupted<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Grand Central Publishing, $30 hardcover, $15.99 paperback).<\/p>\n

The book includes two stories, the first of which deals with the case of upstanding Carrolton church and family man John Frank Howard paying to have his wife killed. Accosted in her garage in 2012, she was shot in the eye but miraculously survived.<\/p>\n

In the edition I read, Chapter 39 referred to a murder trial, but no one actually died, so shouldn\u2019t it have been attempted<\/span> murder? Perhaps that was fixed in later printings.<\/p>\n

The Texas story kicked off Patterson\u2019s new \u201cMurder Is Forever\u201d TV series this year on the Discovery Channel. You can read Murder, Interrupted<\/span> \u2014 178 pages \u2014 in one or two sittings. The second story, 120 pages or so, is Mother of All Murders<\/span>, about a teenaged girl who comes to realize that she isn\u2019t the invalid her mother has claimed she was all these years.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Texas kids:<\/span> Amber Manning<\/span> packs a lot of Texas history and culture into a rhyming children\u2019s book, Mighty Big and Super Great: Texas Is the Lone Star State!<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Bluebonnet Kids, $15.95 hardcover), illustrated by Kory Fluckiger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lone Star State is our nickname,\u201d she writes, \u201cfull of glory, honor and fame; bigger than four states combined, undaunted through the tests of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar quatrains cover Texas heroes, the Texas flag, the Texas Rangers (law enforcement), bluebonnets, armadillos, cowboys and cowgirls, cotton, oil, nature, and more.\u00a0 She concludes with four pages of fun Texas facts, a ten-question test about Texas, the Texas pledge and state song, and a map which, unfortunately, includes only a few Texas cities. Maybe in a future printing it could be expanded to include such places as Fort Worth, Abilene, San Angelo, Midland-Odessa, Bryan-College Station, Beaumont, Galveston, Tyler, and Texarkana, without getting too crowded. A more inclusive map might also translate into a broader market for the book, you think?<\/p>\n

Snowed in:<\/span> Abilene authors Paul and Cyndi Cook<\/span> have produced a children\u2019s book, The Adventures of Lily Penguin: Stuck Inside on a Snowy Day<\/span> (Sweethearts Publishing, $9.95 paperback), illustrated by Toby Mikle<\/span> and projected to be the first of a series featuring Lily.<\/p>\n

In this story, Lily wonders what it would be like to be in a warmer climate, especially today when she is snowed in.\u00a0 Papa Penguin reads her a story, and she feels better about where she is \u2014 but she still dreams of faraway places.<\/p>\n

Maybe she\u2019ll get there in future books.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> has been writing his Texas Reads column since 2002, focusing on Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 3.25.2018\u00a0\u00a0 James Patterson writes about Texas true crime case James Patterson, the mega-bestselling novelist, turns his storytelling talents to true crime, featuring a Texas murder-for-hire case in Murder, Interrupted (Grand Central Publishing, $30 hardcover, $15.99 paperback). The book includes two stories, the first of which deals with the case of upstanding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}