New York, NY: St. Martin's Press (June 28, 2022)

Hardback.

As new in dust jacket.

Cowboy outlaws wanted them dead. Local authorities wanted them in prison. The true story of Texas Rangers Company F’s season of shootouts in 1887.

Between 1886 and 1888, Sgt. James A. Brooks, of Texas Ranger Company F, was engaged in three fatal gunfights, endured disfiguring bullet wounds, engaged in countless manhunts, was convicted for second-degree murder, and received a pardon from the U.S. president. His story anchors the tale of Red Sky Morning, an epic story of lawmen and criminals set in Texas during the waning years of the “Old West.”

Alongside Brooks are the Rangers of Company F, who range from a pious teetotaler to a cowboy fleeing retribution for killing a man. They are all led by Captain William Scott, who cut his teeth as a freelance undercover informant but is now facing the end of his Ranger career. Company F hunts criminals across the state, killing them as needed, and are confident they can bring anyone to “Ranger justice.” But Brooks’ men may have met their match in the Conner family, East Texas master hunters and jailbreakers who are wanted for their part in a bloody family feud.

The full story of Company F’s showdown with the Conner family is finally being told, with long dead voices being heard for the first time. This truly hidden history paints the grim picture of neighbors become murderers, snitches and bounty hunters, and a company of Texas Rangers who waded into the conflict only to find themselves over their heads – and in the fight of their lives.

JOE PAPPALARDO is the author of the critically acclaimed books Inferno: The True Story of a B 17 Gunner’s Heroism and the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History, Sunflowers: The Secret History and Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight. Pappalardo is a writer and former associate editor of Air & Space Smithsonian magazine and a former senior editor and current contributing editor at Popular Mechanics. He has appeared on the television shows What on Earth? and Strange Evidence on the Science Channel.