Border Crime Library

Author's Personal Biography:

Born: Terry County

Education: HS, Pettit, TX

Military: USAF and US Army

Most Interesting Military Assignments:  Acquisition Radar Operator, 1st Pilotless Bomber Squadron, Cape Canaveral;  Instructor, Italian Aircraft Control School, Udine, Italy.   

Retired from INS in 1994. 

INS Assignments: U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration Inspector, Immigration Examiner, Immigration Criminal Investogator.

Stations: Laredo, Texas; El Paso, Texas; Los Angeles, CA.

Temporary Assignment: Chicago, IL,  

INS ducation:  BA in English, UTEP, (Creative Wrting Option).  Graduate Study, UTEP,  Texas Tech:  Advanced Creative Writing, Professional Writing and Editing.

Author's Statement:

Although I did not publish my first novel until 2004, I was essentially a professional writer in the INS, daily writing decisions and memorandums as an Inspector and Examiner from 1975 until retirement in 1994.  I took a five-year break from the INS from 1981 to 1986.  During that time I I continued to study creative writing at Texas Tech, took some courses in law and freelanced as a paralegal, assisting and coaching several lawyers in immigration cases. 

In a less serious vein, I believe that I could write the best non-fiction story of the U.S./Mexico border that has ever been written; however, not being a politically correct person, I do not have the resources at present to hire the lawyers necessary to handle the inevitable lawsuits that follow politically sensitive, non-fiction,  publications that involve real people and real SNAFUs.  However, I have not given up on the idea.  After all, truth is a perfect defense against charges of libel  (I learned that little nugget in a short stint in law school). 

On the other hand, the Immigration bureaucracy is and has been such a political pigpen that such a story would inevitably degenrate into pathos and destroy any chance for marketing the story successfully; but stay tuned. They say there is a time and place for everything.  If I live as long as Mexican Revolution and Prohibition Era border patrolman, Clifford Allen Perkins, it could work out someday.  But I fear that such an historical account would be doomed from the outset because people no longer read or care about history--they seem to prefer to repeat it--and all the mistakes of the past.

Joseph Wambaugh learned the hazards of writing non-fiction police stories.  I once heard him complain to Larry King of law suits and a preference to writing fiction. His fiction is a great success because it has verisimilitude.  That means its base in truth is easily discernible by almost any reader; however,   Wambaugh instinctively knows the measure of truth allowable in fiction without being accused of Román á Cléf.  Fictional characters must not be readily identifiable as real people, or even "fiction" can result in law suits if a plaintiff recognizes a character as herself.  But if a writer masters fictional characterization, he can recount oodles of truth, have a lot of fun, and leave the real characters guessing as to whether that idiot in the story is him.

Thererfore, I'll stick to fiction until the time for the plain-spoken truth is safe and society is ready for it.