Ron Franscell

Ron Franscell (born January 29, 1957) is an American journalist, novelist and true crime writer best known for the true account The Darkest Night about the 1973 crimes against two childhood friends in the small community where Franscell grew up.

Personal background

Franscell was raised in Casper, Wyoming, where he attended Kelly Walsh High School. He received an associate degree in journalism from Casper College, where he was editor of the Chinook school newspaper. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Wyoming in 1979.

He has two children, a wife, and lives in San Antonio, Texas. His wife, Mary Franscell, is an English teacher.

His daughter, Ashley Franscell, is a journalist, and his son Matt Franscell was the central character in Franscell's memoir, The Sourtoe Cocktail Club, about their father-and-son oddyssey to the Yukon on a quest to drive the legendary Sourtoe Cocktail.

Career

He worked as a journalist in Wyoming, New Mexico and California for Gannett newspapers from 1983-1989 and is a past president of the Wyoming Press Association.^[1]

When Hurricane Rita made landfall in Texas, Franscell, managing editor at the time for the Beaumont Enterprise, rode out the storm with staff members in the newspaper's building.^[2][3]

In 2001, he was hired as a senior writer and columnist to write about the American West by the Denver Post, where he stayed two years. Following 9/11, he went on assignment for the Post to the Middle East. He worked for the Hearst Corporation from 2004-2008.

He was a judge for Knight Ridder newspaper's Top Books of 2003.^[4]

In 2008, the book Fall: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town, Franscell's book about his next-door neighbor in Wyoming, was republished by St. Martin's Press with the new title The Darkest Night.^[5]

His book Delivered From Evil, for which he interviewed survivors of notorious mass killings in America, was released in January 2011. After the assassination attempt near Tucson, Arizona the same month of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, when 18 other people were shot, six of whom died, Franscell was asked to comment for media outlets about mass murders.^[6][7]

True Crime Zine gave Franscell's ninth book, The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Washington, DC released by Globe Pequot Press in September 2012, a five-star review.^[8] And The Huffington Post reviewed The Sourtoe Cocktail Club, about a father-and-son road trip before Franscell's son Matt left for college.^[9]

Franscell's The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania was released by Globe Pequot in October 2013.^[10]

Awards

In 1995, Franscell was given the Freedom of Information Award from the National Newspaper Association.

He was awarded the 1996 Wyoming Literary Fellowship for the first few chapters of Angel Fire.^[11] In 1999, Angel Fire was named in the San Francisco Chronicle's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century West.^[12]

In 2003, he was given the Distinguished Alumni Award by Casper College.^[13]

The title Fall won ForeWord Reviews magazine's gold medal for 2007 Book of the Year in true crime.^[14]

Books

Fiction

• The Obituary: A Winchester Bullet Mystery (2003) (ebook editions)
• The Deadline: A Winchester Bullet Mystery (1999) Write Way Publishing. (ISBN 1885173733)
• Angel Fire: A novel (1998), Laughing Owl Publishing (Reissue: Berkley/Penguin Putnam 2000). (ISBN 0965970124)

Non-fiction

• Fall: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town (2007), New Horizon Press (ISBN 0882822799)
• The Darkest Night: Two Sisters, a Brutal Murder, and the Loss of Innocence in a Small Town (2008), St. Martin's Press. (ISBN 0312948468)
• The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Texas (2010), Globe Pequot Press (ISBN 0762759658)
• Delivered From Evil: True Stories of People Who Faced Monsters and Survived (2011), Fair Winds Press (ISBN 1592334407)^[15]
• The Crime Buff's Guide to the Outlaw Rockies (2011), Globe Pequot Press (ISBN 978-0762771639)
• The Sourtoe Cocktail Club: The Yukon Odyssey of a Father and a Son in Search of a Mummified Human Toe ... and Everything Else (2011), Globe Pequot Press (ISBN 978-0762771561)^[16]
• The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Washington, DC (2012), Globe Pequot Press (ISBN 978-0762773855)
• The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania (2013), Globe Pequot Press (ISBN 978-0762788330)
• Evil at the Front Door (2014), Crime Rant Classics
• The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Arizona (2014), Angel Fire Press (ISBN 978-0692026823)
• The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw New Mexico (2014), Angel Fire Press (ISBN 978-0692026816)
• The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Southwest (2014), Angel Fire Press (ISBN 978-0692218471)
• Nightmare at Noon (Texas, Notorious USA) (2015), Notorious USA
• Southern Fried Crime (2015), Notorious USA
• Morgue: A Life in Death (2016) St. Martin's Press

References

External links

• Author's official site
• Publisher's author page