Want to read a real true-crime book?
Try A Hanging in Nacogdoches, by Gary Borders. Published by University of Texas Press.
This true-crime book actually has endnotes, a bibliography, and a good index.
Okay, it's a somewhat scholarly true-crime book, but very readable and accessible, an account that provides the actual context of the event, which, to me, makes it really, really true.
The crime and punishment of Jim Buchanan, the central villain, do not exist in a vacuum, isolated from the social, political, and economic realities of the time. Unlike some other books for sale these days, accuracy and attention to detail appear on every page.
Obviously, lynching is a main topic of the book. Interestingly, Borders mentions how much vigilante mob violence, including burnings - also known as barbecues! - and lynchings, were assisted by the recent installation of the telephone. Hard not to think of today's Social Media when reading that.
Oh yeah, the author's day job? A journalist - editor and publisher of the Daily Sentinel of Nacogdoches TX.
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