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James J. Griffin, while a native New Englander, has been a student of the frontier West from a very young age. He has travelled extensively throughout the western United States, and has visited many of the famous Western frontier towns, such as Tombstone, Pecos, Deadwood, Cheyenne, and numerous others.
Jim became particularly interested in the Texas Rangers from the television series Tales of the Texas Rangers.
Jim's deep interest in the Texas Rangers led him to amass an extensive collection of Texas Ranger artifacts, which is now in the permanent collections of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco. (Jim told his story and it was published in Issue 21 of the Texas Ranger Dispatch (page 35) (new window) The Dispatch is the official publication of the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame & Museum)
Jim and Yankee
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Jim has also been an avid horseman all of his life. He bought his first horse, a pinto, while he was a junior in college, and has owned several American Paint Horses, including his current mount, Yankee. He is a member of the Connecticut Horse Council Volunteer Horse Patrol, an organization which assists the state park rangers with patrolling the state parks and forests.
At the urging of James Reasoner, author of Texas Wind and The Civil War Battle Series, plus many other novels, Jim decided to write a series of Texas Ranger novels. The first book, Trouble Rides the Texas Pacific, was published in 2005. With the success of that book, Jim was encouraged to continue his writing.
Jim's books are traditional Westerns in the best sense of the term, with strong heroes who have good moral values. Highly reminiscient of the pulp westerns of yesterday, the heroes and villians are clearly separated with few shades of gray. No anti-heroes to be found here.
While Jim's books are fiction, he strives to keep them as accurate as possible within the realm of fiction. To that end, besides his own travels and research, he relies on his good friend Texas Ranger Sergeant Jim Huggins of Company F in Waco for forensics and Ranger technical information, and good friends Karl Rehn and Penny Riggs of KR Training in Austin, Texas for their expertise on weapons and ammunition of the frontier West.
Jim is a graduate of Southern Connecticut State University. When not travelling out West, he currently divides his time between Branford, Connecticut and Keene, New Hampshire.
Jim is available for presentations and book signings. More information here. |
