Program of the University of Texas in 1983 and went on to earn degrees from the University of Reading in England and the University of Texas School of Law. After teaching at Saint David’s School in New York City, he returned to Austin to practice law and retired as general counsel of Superior HealthPlan in 2019. He is the author of Sour Lake (2011), Beatrice and the Basilisk (2014), and, with his daughter Carson, Carson Clare’s Trail Guide to Avoiding Death (And Other Unpleasant Consequences) (2017).
His latest work, In the Land of Dead Horses, is a spine-tingling tale of Texas history and supernatural terror. A prequel to 2011’s Sour Lake, In the Land of Dead Horses reintroduces readers to Texas Ranger Jewel Lightfoot and his macabre world of double-barreled demon hunting.
At CrimeReads McCandless tagged six books "to truly understand the currents of violence and criminality that run just below the surface of U.S.-Mexican relations," including:
In the Rogue Blood by James Carlos BlakeRead about the other entries on the list.
In some ways even more ambitious than Blood Meridian, Mexican-born Blake’s In the Rogue Blood is an obvious but able McCarthy copycat that chronicles the long, bloody migration of two brothers from theU.S. to Mexico during the Mexican-American War. South of the border, the brothers find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict: One rides with a group of Mexican outlaws helping the American army, while the other finds himself serving in St. Patrick’s Battalion, a contingent of Americans and Europeans fighting for Mexico. It’s a narrative contrivance, to be sure, but it’s one that allows us to better understand Mexican resentment of the American invasion. Published in 1997, In the Rogue Blood is worth a read, but it fails as art somewhere along the way, featuring so many fistfights, knifings, and broken skulls that it forfeits credibility. Blake has made the bloodbath his cup of tea, and has written a number of other novels involving the border, including The Friends of Pancho Villa and a “border noir” series about the piratical Wolfe Family. They’re all crunchy and vivid, but they tend to hit some of the same notes in their gore-soaked sonatas.
--Marshal Zeringue
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