In the span of about two months, three novels were published that all took place in 19th-century Texas: Stephen Harrigan's masterful reconstruction of the battle at the Alamo, The Gates of the Alamo; Bud Shrake's The Borderland, which picks up, as if on cue, several years after the close of Harrigan's novel; and A Twist at the End, detective novelist Steven Saylor's suspenseful account of Austin's Servant Girl Annihilator murders in the 1880s. The coincidence is a publishing fluke, perhaps, but one that kicked up the dust of old Texas trails and made them come alive.
