Death of a Texas Ranger is a wonderfully researched
and entertaining history about the killing of a Texas Ranger named John
Green. Sergeant Green had been a
successful Indian fighter on the Texas frontier for many years prior to his
death. What makes this history even more fascinating is that John Green was
killed by another Texas Ranger in his own company named Cesario Menchaca.
Why would one Texas Ranger kill another Texas Ranger?
Cynthia Leal Massey does an excellent job of answering this puzzling question
in her new book, Death of a Texas Ranger: A True Story of Murder and
Vengeance on the Texas Frontier. Death
of a Texas Ranger reads like a Western mystery novella with a twist that
you will not see coming. Death of a
Texas Ranger would make an excellent Coen brothers’ movie.
In some of my recent talks and presentations, I have
encouraged Texas historians, both vocational and avocational, to look for the
hidden jewels of Texas history waiting to be discovered in the sea of
unexplored primary source documents in courthouses, archives and private
collections all over Texas. Death of a Texas Ranger: A True Story of Murder
and Vengeance on the Texas Frontier is the latest example of a Texas
historian getting into previously unexplored primary source documents to bring
readers something new and interesting as well as factual. Cynthia Leal Massey has indeed found several
jewels of Texas history that no one else had uncovered before her.
I highly recommend this very entertaining history book to
anyone interested in Texas history, the Texas Rangers, or the life and culture
along the Texas frontier between the 1850's and the early 1900's. Death of a Texas Ranger: A True Story of
Murder and Vengeance on the Texas Frontier
by Cynthia Leal Massey is 208 pages, $16.95, Paperback, published by Two
Dots an imprint of Globe Pequot Press. Death of a Texas Ranger
(978-0-7627-9305-1) has a release date of June 3, 2014.
