The most recommended books about Texas

At first glance, Valley of Shadows is a straight-genre horror novel, with a gruesome whodunnit at its center.

We’re given a noble but flawed Mexican American hero, Solitario, searching for a band of ritualistic murderers, who, by the novel’s midpoint, have already slaughtered a dozen men, women, and children.

This leaves Solitario, like the reader, desperate to keep them from killing again, but clueless about who they are and how they select their victims. This mystery remains unsolved until a shocking perpetrator and motive emerge on the novel’s final pages.

An essential thread in Ruiz’s riveting story is its otherworldly cast of characters, including a parade of personable ghosts, two living bruja (Mexican witches), and both the mythology and practical applications of Aztec and Apache mystical traditions.

Readers will recognize these flourishes as directly traceable to the fantastical, politically charged magic realism style developed by masters of this genre, namely… show more.

I picked this one up for $1 at the Clearwater Public Library. Boy am I glad I did!

Patoski’s Willie Nelson biography is a thorough, delightful read that really captures Nelson as an artist, a human being, and a visionary—a cultural juggernaut whose tremendous impact on American music extends well beyond songwriting and performing such as his annual 4th of July Picnics and founding of Farm Aid.

Even more remarkable to me is the fact that Willie has made 15 (and counting) more years of history since the book’s original publication. I’m looking forward to Volume II.

Jacky is a relatable character who’s gone through a major upheaval.

She’s become a werecat. Not raised in werecat society, she doesn’t let their views against other supernatural species stop her from doing what is right. Despite a surrogate father who thinks he’s always right, and siblings who want her to conform, Jacky very much marches to the beat of her own drum. Life is never dull when you’re a werecat with honor. 

Not necessarily a fan of Westerns, I loved this original story.

Set in post-Civil War, eastern Texas, an unlikely hero, Jefferson Kyle Kidd is enjoined to return a young white girl, rescued from Indians, to living relatives. Initially reluctant, Kidd commits himself to his mission regardless of challenge.

I love it when I find myself there in a story. I found myself swallowed by the challenges they faced, my attention (and tension) rising with each one. I also love it when I find myself rooting for the characters as I did with this believable story.

Though there is action, I loved that it was Kidd’s quick-witted intelligence (and that of the girl) that set the story apart.

Winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, McMurtry’s trail drive tale remains one of the most powerful stories about the Old West or any other time or place. Woodrow Call and Augustus McRae and their cowboy crew experience friendship, love, hardship, life, and death as they drive a herd of cattle from Texas to Montana. A book worth reading and rereading, as I have done.

Brammer’s novel has resonated throughout my career, warning of almost inevitable disillusionment with a political powerhouse. Brammer had served as a top aide to Lyndon Johnson, on whom he based Arthur Fenstemaker, a star as bright as Penn Warren’s Willie Stark. The Gay Place spoke to me even more directly, focusing on minor politicos and their ambitions, frailties, and humanity. And the book drove home, through a pervading sadness, the anomie that rises from disillusionment. Brammer’s “Flea Circus” metaphor continues to amuse and bum me.

Agatha Lapp is one of the most well-written Amish protagonists I’ve read. She is reserved and stiff but wholly likable. She holds right to the idea and truth of what an Amish woman is like. She is also caring and real.

I love this book because of the diverse relationships that happen—from the B&B guests to the neighbors to the surrounding Amish community. I don’t believe any two people could be more different than Agatha and Tony. Yet they must work together, which makes for interesting reading.

The mystery itself is a great whodunit that kept me turning the pages faster until the end.

Run, Brother, Run is my favorite true crime memoir simply because the author, David Berg, slices through the legal aspects and cuts deeply into the personal pain of murder.

After all, David is a prominent Houston attorney and the brother of the murder victim, Alan Berg. Just as David was beginning his law career and arguing (and winning) a case before the Supreme Court, Alan mysteriously disappeared.

David’s gut told him that Alan had been murdered by a ticked off business associate who had hired hitman Charles Harrelson, actor Woody Harrelson’s father. This time it’s Percy Foreman, Richard “Racehorse” Haynes’s mentor, who outguns the prosecution, freeing Harrelson to later murder a Texas judge.

David’s an outstanding author whose prose is vivid, tight, and heartfelt.

This book fills the wilds of Texas with a plague of zombie-like “shakes,” and somehow they are all the scarier for being more of a backdrop than the core of the story. The desert setting is almost a character itself, and it practically shimmers with menace. Between the haunting sense of place and time and the galloping pace of the action, I gobbled down this book in one sitting.

Bob Fudge worked for the famous XIT, a large cattle outfit based in the Texas Panhandle, during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Bob Fudge lived an iconic cowboy life, driving cattle from Texas to Montana. He told his life story in 1932, a year before his death. I first heard about this rare book during a song intro, by western singer Ian Tyson on his Live At Longview album. Before he plays the song “Bob Fudge,” Tyson tells a story of how someone left this book on his guitar case during an earlier performance—and it captivated him. The book captivated me, too, and served as inspiration for my own western novels. Another Canadian western singer, Colter Wall, recorded a live cover version (watch it on YouTube) that is quite cool.