Bluffing Texas Style

Although "Bluffing Texas Style" is an indictment of Jenkins, I think he might have been secretly proud that his exploits inspired this readable and solidly researched book." - Wall Street Journal, 28th April 2020


"Johnny Jenkins published his first book the day he graduated from high school. He engineered the largest rare book deal of the twentieth century, dabbled in movies, played championship poker, smoked Cuban cigars, and, on occasion, wore a full-length mink coat to complement his alligator cowboy boots. He also sold numerous forgeries of several of the rarest documents in Texas history and eventually brought his empire crashing down around him. Michael Vinson has told Johnny's tragic story in amazing detail and with astonishing candor." - Ron Tyler, former director of the Texas State Historical Association and author of Western Art, Western History



"Mike Vinson is not bluffing. He has ably flopped on the table all the cards of reading enjoyment in this exhaustively researched biography of a complex bookman, whose addiction to gambling motivated famous Texas Hold 'em player, Amarillo Slim, to christen him Austin Squatty. Vinson skillfully reveals the full house of Johnny's character, genius, duplicity, charm, exaggeration, bluff, chicanery, and even courage, demonstrating that in all his activities, Johnny was a master of self-promotion. Brilliant, entertaining, and troubling, this book will keep you engaged from first page to last, so when you reach the showdown, there will be no doubt you are holding a literary royal flush." - J. P. Bryan, lifetime board member of the Texas State Historical Association and founder of the Bryan Museum
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"Johnny Jenkins broke the rules and never got caught. Michael Vinson tracks his life and crimes with the zeal of a Texas Ranger, producing a lively account of a renegade bookseller and a wild period that might otherwise have been forgotten." - David Streitfeld, Pulitzer Prize - winning reporter for the New York Times