In 1989 a woman fishing in Texas on a quiet stretch of the Colorado River snagged a body. Her “catch” was the corpse of Johnny Jenkins, shot in the head. His death was as dramatic as the rare book dealer’s life, which read, as the Austin American-Statesman declared, “like a best seller”.

At the time of his death, Jenkins was about to be indicted by the ATF for the arson of his rare books, warehouse, and offices. Another investigation implicated Jenkins in forgeries of historical documents, including the Texas Declaration of Independence. Rumors of million-dollar gambling debts at mob-connected casinos circulated, along with the rumblings of irate mafia figures he’d fingered and eccentric Texas collectors he’d cheated. Had he been murdered? Or was his death a suicide, staged to look like a murder?

His undercover work for the FBI, recovering rare books stolen by mafia figures, had also earned him headlines coast to coast, as had his exploits as “Austin Squatty”, playing high stakes poker in Las Vegas. But beneath such public triumphs lay darker secrets.

How Jenkins, a onetime president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, came to such an unseemly end is one of the mysteries Michael Vinson pursues in this spirited account of a tragic American life.

The book is published by University of Oklahoma Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

“Michael Vinson has told Johnny’s tragic story in amazing detail and with astonishing candor.” (Ron Tyler, former director of the Texas State Historical Association)

“Brilliant, entertaining, and troubling, this book will keep you engaged from first page to last...." (J. P. Bryan, lifetime board member of the Texas State Historical Association)

“A lively account of a renegade bookseller and a wild period that might otherwise have been forgotten.” (David Streitfeld, Pulitzer Prize - winning reporter for the New York Times)