Last Gangster in Austin

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What to expect

Ronnie Earle was a Texas legend. During his three decades as the district attorney responsible for Austin and surrounding Travis County, he prosecuted corrupt corporate executives and state officials, including the notorious US congressman Tom DeLay.

But Ronnie Earle maintained that the biggest case of his career was the one involving Frank Hughey Smith, the ex-convict millionaire, alleged criminal mastermind, and Dixie Mafia figure.

With the help of corrupt local authorities, Smith spent the 1970s building a criminal empire in auto salvage and bail bonds. But there was one problem: a rival in the salvage business threatened his dominance. Smith hired arsonists to destroy the rival; when they botched the job, he sent three gunmen, but the robbery they planned was a bloody fiasco. Investigators were convinced that Smith was guilty, but many were skeptical that the newly elected and inexperienced Earle could get a conviction.

Amid the courtroom drama and underworld plots that the book describes, Willie Nelson makes a cameo. So do the private eyes, hired guns, and madams who kept Austin not only weird but also riddled with vice.

An extraordinary true story, Last Gangster in Austin paints an unusual picture of the Texas capital as a place that was wild, wonderful, and as crooked as the dirt road to paradise.

Critics Review

  • “Sublett’s riveting true-crime story reads like a classic noir novel.”

    Austin American-Statesman

  • “A true-crime story…replete with genuine heroes, repellent villains, and a slew of supporting characters any self-respecting crime novelist would be proud to have created on the page…Sublett constructs the story with a sharp eye and a hard-boiled flair.”

    Austin Chronicle

  • “Enjoy this romp back in time to the era when Ronnie Earle ruled at the courthouse and Frank Smith in the salvage business.”

    Kathryn Casey, author of In Plain Sight

  • “Jesse Sublett is a first-rate writer and researcher. Once again he dives deep, exposing the creeps and bottom feeders of Austin’s criminal past to create an engrossing portrait of district attorney Ronnie Earle at the dawn of his long and legendary career.”

    W. K. Stratton, author of The Wild Bunch

  • “A rookie district attorney, a wily, backslapping multimillionaire bail bondsman, and one of the biggest criminal investigations in Austin history. Jesse Sublett’s book is both a riveting crime story and a character-rich study of Austin, Texas. It’s smartly crafted and excellently researched.”

    Skip Hollandsworth, author of The Midnight Assassin

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