A fascinating story of deception and loyalty.
Turner and Alligood offer a true-life account of a man who faked his death during the Great Depression.
Co-author Turner’s grandfather was, she writes, “a man with two tombstones.” One was in rural Tennessee, where Boss Bingham faked his death during the Great Depression, leaving behind a wife and three children; the other was in West Texas, where he forged a new identity as Marvin Lester Brooks and married another woman, with whom he had four children. He only admitted to the deception after suffering a nearly fatal stroke in 1971, dropping a bombshell on members of his original family. “Was he a crook or a scapegoat, a coward or a man of principle, a manipulative schemer, or a man of incredible naivete?” Turner asks in this riveting, meticulously researched account of her quest to “define the man who disappeared.” The book alternates between the narrative of Boss Bingham’s life and Turner’s trip to Texas to interview Brooks’ children—her Texas aunts and uncles. With the assistance of his brother and others, Boss fabricated his demise in January 1931, digging up a corpse from a graveyard, putting the body in his own car, and then setting fire to it. According to Turner, the scheme was cooked up so Boss could avoid possible prosecution for embezzlement and fraud at the Hardin County, Tennessee bank where he worked as head cashier. Astonishingly, Boss’ wife, Mary Louise Bingham, went along with it, even committing fraud herself to collect the proceeds from his life insurance policies. The book is full of compelling details; one of Turner’s two Texas aunts tells her that her grandfather would give her “a nickel to wash his stinky feet”; another aunt recalls that, shortly before he died, “He kept wanting Mary. He said, ‘Mary, Mary where are you? Mary, I need you.’” Turner asks herself, “Why did I care about this man?” Her singular achievement is to make readers care about him and about his two families.
A fascinating story of deception and loyalty.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9788895270363
Page Count: 232
Publisher: University of Tennessee
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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