The Gun That Wasn't There by retired Texas police chief Russell Smith, with an introduction by Elmer Kelton, meticulously outlines the true story of rural West Texas communities under attack by an armed criminal in the 1960s. At times graphic, this vivid true crime story is an unusually perceptive assessment of the criminal mind as told with the surprising empathetic voice of both survivors and victims of crime.
Russell S. Smith was born in Uvalde, Texas. He started writing poems and short stories long before he graduated from high school in 1969. He attended Southwest Texas Junior College, Howard College and Angelo State University; the majority of his classes dealt with criminal justice.
His law enforcement career began as a reserve deputy with the Tom Green County Sheriff's Department in 1977 and ended when he retired as the San Angelo's Police Chief in 1999. This experience spurred his professional writing career when he sold his first article to a police trade magazine in 1980. Russell was appointed as a Tom Green County Justice of the Peace in 2003. Unopposed in the following two elections, he retired December 31, 2010.
Russell spent five years as an outdoor columnist for the San Angelo Standard-Times and several magazines. He received numerous awards for his writing and photography from the Texas Outdoor Writers' Association. "The Gun That Wasn't There" was his first non-fiction book. His second was "No Reason to Kill" about the murder of Sheila Elrod, a 20-year-old San Angelo girl killed during a jewelry store robbery in 1980. His third is "One Policeman's Lights and Siren," about which the author says, "This is true police work, there is no Superman suit here."
Russell currently has several nonfiction projects underway - "Steps Into God's Country" will detail how he came to love the great outdoors; "Women, Whiskey and Sin" (series of books) will educate readers about the earliest West Texas felony court cases; "The Interviews of Henry Lee and Ottis" will educate readers about the time that both killers spent in the Concho Valley area; and photographs have just been taken for a project that will educate people about the real cowboy life.
Russell S. Smith, author, writer and photographer, lives in San Angelo, Texas. He is again writing an outdoor column for the San Angelo Standard Times.
