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Meet the Author of "Boss Brooks: A True Story of Fraud, Family, and Forgiveness from Tennessee to Texas” by Kathy Bingham Turner and Leon Alligood. Get a signed copy, listen to a reading, and enjoy refreshments. The University of Tennessee Press is proud to announce the publication of “Boss Brooks: A True Story of Fraud, Family, and Forgiveness from Tennessee to Texas” by Kathy Bingham Turner and Leon Alligood, available in paperback and ebook formats beginning on November 25, 2025. The story of “Boss Brooks” starts in West Tennessee in 1931, where a well-known banker named Boss Bingham was in a fiery car crash that took his life, devastating his town and family, especially his three children. Decades later, in 1972, a Texas rancher named Marvin Lester Brooks passed away after suffering a stroke. Brooks had a wife and four grown children at the time and was a successful cotton farmer. It was around this time when Kathy Bingham Turner learned this man was her grandfather, and that her grandmother had helped him fake his death to avoid prison time all those years ago. The revelation prompted Turner to find out more about her grandfather’s life after his supposed death. With “Boss Brooks,” Turner and veteran journalist Leon Alligood deliver a gripping and unique story that blends family memoir with true crime, detailing the crimes committed, truths withheld, and the impact of this long-term lie on both families. Turner and Alligood uncover the full truth of the Bingham and Brooks families, the histories of rural Tennessee and Texas, and the complex legacy of a man who fought for a second chance, evaded the law, and got away with it. Phillip Lee Williams, author and member of the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, says of the book, “'Boss Brooks’ is a stunning story, beautifully told, of a family’s search for the truth in a web of crimes from nearly a century ago. It is one of the finest true crime stories I have ever read and shows the courage it takes to seek redemption for the acts of our ancestors. This story will haunt you. And it will give you hope.”“Boss Brooks: A True Story of Fraud, Family, and Forgiveness from Tennessee to Texas” will be available for purchase at utpress.org and wherever books are sold.View the promo video here:
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