The Bright List

How Tony Hillerman Got His Start— Reporting Crime in the Great Taos Bank Robbery

The Great Taos Bank Robbery and Other True Stories of the Southwest, by Tony Hillerman

Yes, it’s Tony Hillerman from his first youthful stories as a cub reporter. He was amazing from the very beginning, when no one knew his name other than the local readers. Immediately, you feel the same quick-witted, careful observation that’s part of his novels; but also, his warmth, humility, humor, and love of New Mexico.

This edition of The Great Taos Bank Robbery has even more stories than the first release, and a foreword written by Hillerman's daughter, who is just as enchanting as her father.

Narrated by the great Western audiobook narrator, Jack Garrett.

—Aretha Bright

I’ll Do My Own Damn Killin’ -- The Bloody History of the Texas Gambling War

 

I’ll Do My Own Damn Killin’: Benny Binion, Herbert Noble, and the Texas Gambling War, by Gary Sleeper

I’ll Do My Own Damn Killin’ —a slogan that needs to be on a t-shirt!—  is a rarely-told history of Dallas gambling history, a huge showdown killing instigated by the notorious gangster Benny Binion, and the crazy life of the Dallas G-Men. 

Binion is best known  for opening the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, symbolized by the horseshoe in the front lobby that showed off a million dollars in $10,000 bills encased in plastic.

(The casino sold the horseshoe off in 2000 because the scarcity of $10,000 bills— little over 300 remained in circulation— made the display worth far more than a million bucks).

Binion led the Texas gambling underground in a savage war against his onetime partner, Herbert Noble, that lasted over 15 years. Noble survived at least eleven attacks on his life between 1938 and 1951, when a bomb planted in his mailbox finally killed him. Binion was never convicted for involvement in Noble’s death, but there was enough heat to make him leave Texas behind and start a new life—and a whole new legend—in Las Vegas.

With chapters like “The Plot to Bomb Las Vegas” and “That’s the Stuff That Killed My Wife,” Sleeper’s biography never slows down. Another winner for true-crime fans.

--Aretha Bright

The Murder Stables of Harlem

 

Gangsters of Harlem: The Gritty Underworld of New York’s Most Famous Neighborhood, by Ron Chepesiuk

 I fell in love with the mobsters in Gangsters of Harlem just as many people have with the characters in The Wire or The Sopranos.

There’s a long literary tradition about the Harlem underworld—most notably Chester Himes's novels about policemen Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson—but it's been neglected by modern popular culture.

As Chepesiuk shows in this book, the organized crime bosses in Harlem were every bit as powerful and compelling as those who have become modern pop icons, like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, or Carlo Gambino.

Despite their shady business, it was easy—disturbingly so—to become invested in these mobsters. One detail that's going to stick with me for a long time is Chepesiuk's description of the "Murder Stables," owned by Ignazio Lupo of the Morello Gang, where hundreds of his rivals were tortured and murdered  in the early 1900s.

True crime fans are going to eat this up with a spoon. Listening to jazz in the nightclub, witnessing  a brutal murder—it's so intimate that you can almost feel complicit.

In a Wire-esque finale, Chepesiuk looks at the involvement of the NYPD with organized crime. If your cup of tea includes a dash of lethal bathtub gin, this is your hot toddy.

--Aretha Bright

Katie Williams Takes a Teen Misfit Into The Space Between Trees

 

The Space Between Trees, by Katie Williams

Ahhh... A story many teenagers could relate to: A 16-year old misfit, with no real friends, and a huge crush on a boy who barely acknowledges her presence.

Except! — this story begins with a paper route in the middle of nowhere... and a murder.

The "bad girl" that our lonely heroine befriends—of course, it has to be the bad girl!— is a great character. (I was rooting for them to hook up, instead of her and the boy).

Space Between Trees is simply beautiful writing; author Katie Williams is a stand0ut. The remoteness of the location puts you in the forest, far away from everything. The title is a perfect fit.

The Chronicle Books cover design, although it isn't "felt" in the audio edition, is over the top, even for them.  No one could pass this book on display in a store, without reaching to open it. Once they find it, they’ll love hearing it read out loud. 

A Junior Library Guild Selection and a Publishers' Weekly Starred Review.

Narrated by wonderful YA actor, Emily Eiden.

--Aretha  and Susie Bright