{"id":458,"date":"2018-12-31T12:23:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T12:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=458"},"modified":"2018-12-31T12:23:10","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T12:23:10","slug":"glenn-dromgooles-texas-reads-column-appears-weekly-at-lonestarliterary-com-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=458","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

3.6.16\u00a0\u00a0 FBI agent finds small-town chief\u2019s job challenging<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Dallas author Melissa Lenhardt<\/span> introduces readers to the new police chief in town, Jack McBride, in her debut novel, Stillwater<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Skyhorse Publishing, $24.99 hardcover).<\/p>\n

McBride moves to the fictional East Texas small town of Stillwater to take the chief\u2019s position in hopes of bringing some stability to his life and that of his thirteen-year-old son, Ethan.<\/p>\n

This should be an easy assignment for a former FBI agent, he figures, a town with a very low crime rate. But on his first day on the job he encounters what appears to be a murder-suicide but soon realizes it\u2019s a double murder, perhaps drug-related.<\/p>\n

And on the first day, he also meets bookstore owner Ellie Martin and is immediately attracted to her. McBride\u2019s wife left him and their son a year ago, and they\u2019ve had no contact with her since. He is finally ready to file for divorce despite Ethan hoping somehow for a reconciliation.<\/p>\n

On his second day on the job, McBride is pistol-whipped, his squad car is stolen and burned, and his suspect flees the county.<\/p>\n

On the third day, he investigates a young boy\u2019s report of finding a skeleton in the woods. That reopens a fifty-year-old case involving some prominent citizens, including McBride\u2019s predecessor, the corrupt longtime police chief who used his power for personal gain.<\/p>\n

Stillwater<\/span> is a page-turner (I breezed through it in two days) and covers a lot of ground in McBride\u2019s action-packed first week on the job.<\/p>\n

The novel\u2019s ending leaves readers anticipating the sequel, The Fisher King,<\/span> scheduled for November.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>UH football, basketball:<\/span> History teacher and former high school coach Robert D. Jacobus<\/span> has produced a thoroughly researched and compelling account of the groundbreaking University of Houston football and basketball teams of the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Jacobus tells the story of UH breaking the color barrier in Texas under football coach Bill Yeoman and basketball coach Guy V. Lewis in Houston Cougars in the 1960s: Death Threats, the Veer Offense, and the Game of the Century<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Texas A&M University Press, $29.95 hardcover, 392 pages). The book is based on nearly 250 interviews as well as published accounts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UH story,\u201d Jacobus writes, \u201cis both a team history and a history of integration of college athletics throughout the South. \u201cThis book,\u201d he continues, \u201crecounts many courageous decisions that put the UH Cougars near the top of America\u2019s college football and basketball world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main characters in the story are Yeoman, Lewis, football star Warren McVea, and basketball stars Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney, all of whom were interviewed extensively by Jacobus. At the end of the book, Jacobus provides a list of all the people he interviewed and sources he consulted as well as an extensive index.<\/p>\n

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

Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> is co-author, with Carlton Stowers, of 101 Essential Texas Books<\/span><\/a><\/span> Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/p>\n

>> <\/span>Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 3.6.16\u00a0\u00a0 FBI agent finds small-town chief\u2019s job challenging Dallas author Melissa Lenhardt introduces readers to the new police chief in town, Jack McBride, in her debut novel, Stillwater (Skyhorse Publishing, $24.99 hardcover). McBride moves to the fictional East Texas small town of Stillwater to take the chief\u2019s position in hopes of […]<\/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-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458","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=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}