That's My Story tells two tales. The first-The Last Posse-is set in 1922 west Texas. Sheriff Jim Groves leads a posse by automobile and horseback after the famous outlaw Frank Holloway. At the same time, Jim's father's grave is opened and his body snatched, apparently to prove an inheritance of Manhattan's notorious billion-dollar Edwards Estate. Narrating is Jim's 12-year-old nephew Bing, who will be tasked with saving the day. (The Last Posse is inspired by the author's great-uncle's chase and capture of Holloway.)
The second tale, That's My Story, based on the real-life 1935 scandal concerning UCLA football ringer Ted Key, a.k.a. "Texas Ted," also draws on family history. It takes place in Beverly Hills, where former sheriff Jim Groves lives in a stately Holmby Hills "cottage," providing security to the Raven brothers, rich Los Angeles developers and boosters of the Bruins. Jim's son "Texas Ted" is the fullback who carries his team almost to the Rose Bowl before being challenged as ineligible. Getting to the bottom of things, the sheriff-Bing again accompanying his uncle and again narrating-traces the commotion to Oil King Cassidy himself, chief booster of the Bruins' archrivals, the USC Trojans. Classic noir mayhem ensues.
That's My Story offers two lively pictures of American life from the writer Kirkus Reviews calls "a masterly communicator of time and place."
