BOSS BROOKS

Turner and Alligood offer a true-life account of a man who faked his death during the Great Depression.

Co-author Turner’s grandfather was, she writes, “a man with two tombstones.” One was in rural Tennessee, where Boss Bingham faked his death during the Great Depression, leaving behind a wife and three children; the other was in West Texas, where he forged a new identity as Marvin Lester Brooks and married another woman, with whom he had four children. He only admitted to the deception after suffering a nearly fatal stroke in 1971, dropping a bombshell on members of his original family. “Was he a crook or a scapegoat, a coward or a man of principle, a manipulative schemer, or a man of incredible naivete?” Turner asks in this riveting, meticulously researched account of her quest to “define the man who disappeared.” The book alternates between the narrative of Boss Bingham’s life and Turner’s trip to Texas to interview Brooks’ children—her Texas aunts and uncles. With the assistance of his brother and others, Boss fabricated his demise in January 1931, digging up a corpse from a graveyard, putting the body in his own car, and then setting fire to it. According to Turner, the scheme was cooked up so Boss could avoid possible prosecution for embezzlement and fraud at the Hardin County, Tennessee bank where he worked as head cashier. Astonishingly, Boss’ wife, Mary Louise Bingham, went along with it, even committing fraud herself to collect the proceeds from his life insurance policies. The book is full of compelling details; one of Turner’s two Texas aunts tells her that her grandfather would give her “a nickel to wash his stinky feet”; another aunt recalls that, shortly before he died, “He kept wanting Mary. He said, ‘Mary, Mary where are you? Mary, I need you.’” Turner asks herself, “Why did I care about this man?” Her singular achievement is to make readers care about him and about his two families.

A fascinating story of deception and loyalty.