Les Edgerton Books in Order

Returning to his Texas hometown, adult Corey recalls a formative summer in the 1950s. With violent parents, a terminally ill grandfather, and a troubled friend, his fourteen-year-old self struggles to find love and a sense of independence.

Edgerton guides writers toward a personal style through exercises in tone, vocabulary, imagery, and rhythm. The book examines how learned habits and excessive self-editing can suppress individuality, offering ways to preserve a distinctive voice while revising.

Father and son Les and Mike Edgerton draw on coaching and playing experience to guide families through youth baseball. They use humor to address difficult coaches, teammates, and parents while keeping children's enjoyment of the sport central.

This writing guide examines how to construct effective openings for novels and short stories. Edgerton explains inciting incidents, central story problems, backstory, and scene structure, using examples and publishing professionals' advice to show why beginnings succeed or fail.

Edgerton traces the history and methods of Perfect Game USA, a scouting and development organization for young baseball players. The book examines how its showcases and evaluations changed routes into college teams and professional baseball.

Recently paroled Jake Mayes heads south with his friend Bud after a devastating breakup. Their impulsive road trip begins with a robbery and carries them through Louisiana, as crime and self-destructive decisions threaten Jake's fragile freedom.

Reformed offender Jake Bishop has built a new life as a hair designer, but criminal ties draw him back into danger. Facing life imprisonment for another conviction, he struggles with obligations that threaten his family and moral survival.

A criminal mastermind devises an elaborate robbery involving a banker strapped to a bomb and a network of New Orleans outlaws. Money laundering, drugs, and conflicting ambitions complicate the scheme, whose apparent precision conceals a crucial mistake.

Awaiting execution, Truman Ferris Pinter recounts the crime that put him on death row through a deeply unreliable perspective. His self-justifications, childhood memories, and claims of extraordinary abilities create a disturbing exploration of delusion and criminal responsibility.

Disgraced baseball player Pete Halliday hustles in New Orleans while owing money to a bookie. His associate Tommy proposes kidnapping a Cajun mob boss, setting off betrayals, rival gang pursuits, and complications involving waitress Cat Duplaisir.

Charles Kincaid plans to strap a remote-controlled bomb to a banker and steal millions from a drug lord. Accidentally alerting a retired policeman undermines the scheme, while hidden family ties and competing betrayals complicate an already dangerous crime.

These stories follow outlaws, former prisoners, frightened families, and children pushed toward violence. Their characters confront the consequences of desperate choices, revealing hard-earned knowledge of survival and the damaging pressures that shape lives on the margins.

In this memoir, Edgerton examines the impulses behind his thrill-seeking and self-destructive behavior. Recalling his criminal past and changes of direction, he searches for the experiences that shaped his choices and his struggle for control over his life.

These short stories portray people living on society's margins, including troubled spouses, alcoholics, and parolees. Across varied situations and narrative styles, Edgerton explores the pressures, destructive choices, and resilience of characters trying to manage difficult lives.

Teenager Elizabeth Downing sees a double in the mirror whose blue eyes differ from her own. When she trades places with the reflection, Liz takes control of her life, forcing Elizabeth to seek a way back.

In Depression-era East Texas, Amelia struggles to feed four children while enduring an abusive marriage. Her husband's imprisonment, a wounded fugitive's arrival, and renewed contact with her first love bring escalating danger to her isolated household.