Boss Brooks

**Winner of the 2026 Silver Falchion Award for Nonfiction**
**True crime meets family memoir in this gripping story of faked death**
In 1931, Boss Bingham, the head cashier of Hardin County Bank in Saltillo, Tennessee, faked his death from a fiery auto accident and fled west to escape allegations of fraud and embezzlement. While his three children believed he was dead, Bingham reinvented himself as Marvin Lester Brooks, a rancher in Sherwood, Texas, where he married and raised a second family. Upon his death four decades later, he became a man with two tombstones.
In *Boss Brooks: A True Story of Fraud, Family, and Forgiveness from Tennessee to Texas* , Bingham’s granddaughter Kathy Bingham Turner and journalist Leon Alligood uncover the truth about Boss’s deception and explore the impacts on both his families. Through meticulous research and personal reflections, the authors delve into the history of rural Tennessee and Texas, revealing the complex legacy of a man whose final confession came only after suffering a stroke in 1972.
A gripping memoir of family secrets revealed, *Boss Brooks* offers a compelling blend of historical context and personal discovery. Turner and Alligood have produced a captivating saga that helps us understand the multifaceted nature of family legacies.