It was nearly a hundred years ago when Santa Claus walked into the First National Bank of Cisco and pulled a gun. Two years later, an angry mob dragged the Santa Claus bandit from the Eastland County Jail and hung him.
Now there’s a new novel about the Santa Claus Bank Robbery—and you have a chance to read it for free before it comes out.
The author, Tom Goodman, first heard about the story while serving as the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Eastland back in the 1990s. Thirty years later, he decided to write a novel about the untold part of this story. The novel will be released at events in Eastland and Cisco this Fall, but Goodman is looking for people to join his “Advance Reader Team” right now.
“I’ve always been fascinated with the last bandit survivor,” Goodman said. The Santa Claus robber wasn’t the only one involved in the heist. He enlisted three other men for what was supposed to be an easy three-minute grab. But it turned into a deadly shootout in the narrow alley through which they tried to escape.
Three died in spectacular ways: the last-minute recruit who had never committed a crime died in the alleyway gunfight; the preacher’s son died in the electric chair; and the Santa Claus bandit himself was lynched by his own neighbors after a failed jailbreak. Anytime the story is told, it usually ends there. But the fourth man has always intrigued Goodman.
“The Associated Press called him ‘the Jean Valjean of the Santa Claus Robbery.’” That’s a reference to the main character of Les Miserables, which was a popular novel in Texas at the time.
The Eastland jury gave this Texas Jean Valjean a life sentence instead of execution. After some headline-grabbing failed jailbreaks, he turned things around. He was given early release and, when he died in 1996, he had been a married model citizen for fifty years.
“In his honor,” Goodman said, “my novel is called The Last Man: A Novel of the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery.”
Goodman has received an early endorsement from two-time Spur Award-winner, James Wade. “Goodman writes crisp, confident prose, giving us a novel as compelling as the incredible true story it’s based on. The Last Man blends thrilling, cinematic set pieces with convincing character work that explores the nature of crime and rehabilitation. Fans of historical fiction should list Goodman among their ‘must-buy’ authors.”
If you’re interested in joining the Advance Review Team for this novel, go online to www.mainstaybooks.com. You’ll get the first chapter for free, and you’ll receive instructions for how to get the complete novel later this summer. Members of the Advance Review Team agree to receive the complete novel in exchange for leaving an honest review at Amazon or other review sites.
