2024 Will Rogers Medallion Award Winner!
๏ปฟGrand Prize Winner for the 2023 Chanticleer Laramie Award for Americana Fiction!
"A novel as compelling as the incredible true story it's based on." James Wade, two-time Spur Award-winning author ofย Beasts of the Earth.
When Santa Claus enters a Texas bank just before Christmas in 1927, no one expects him to pull a gun.
The fake white beard hides his dentity from his neighbors while he and three others take everything. But their easy heist goes sideways fast when armed lawmen and citizens assemble to claim a new reward for dead bank robbers.
Taking hostages, the gang forces a path through a frenzied and bloody shootout, setting the whole Lone Star state on their trail.
One bandit dies in the getaway. One is executed in the electric chair. One swings from a rope in a mob lynching. The last man finds a life he always hoped for โฆ if only he can keep it.
Closely based on a true crime,ย The Last Manย is a gritty Prohibition-era Western novel filled with flawed characters and second chances.
"Do not miss this fabulous Texas tale!โ Kathleen YโBarbo, Publishers Weekly bestselling author ofย The Black Midnightย and theย Bayou Nouvelleย series.
Thomas Goodman first ran across the story of the Santa Claus Bank Robbery when he served as a pastor in the small Texas county where it all took place. He currently lives in Austin, where he has been able to conduct extensive research on the true crime at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Thomasย The Last Manย is his first novel.