What if P. G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and the Monty Python crew had grown up in a small Texas town instead of England? Now imagine their best friend is legendary Texas political journalist Molly Ivins. One would travel the galaxy in pickup trucks instead of spaceships. The Discworld would have rednecks, cowboys, and oilmen instead of trolls, dwarves, and zombies. Jeeves and Wooster would be played by QED Morningwood and Cotton Widdershins. There are no dead parrots, but plenty of roadkill armadillos.

Everyone knows someone like QED Morningwood. You probably went to school or worked with someone like him: a liar, braggart, and teller of tall tales. Someone you’re not exactly friends with, but you enjoy the spectacle of his presence.

When QED shows up at the domino parlor with a mysterious Russian crate in the back of his pickup truck, he confides to the players he is a “Shadow” member of the NRA, not on their official membership roll, and has a load of rocket-propelled grenades—all lies. The news spreads to the real Shadow NRA, the FBI, and Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Cultural Preservation sends an agent to retrieve the crate, the actual contents known only to the Russians.

The Russian agent, an FBI team, a DHS undercover agent, and a Shadow NRA hit team arrive in Heelstring, Texas, looking for QED and his crate. Their convergence is followed by interrogations, seduction, lies, arrests, jailbreak, kidnapping, and rescue—along with car chases and explosions. If not for Cotton Widdershins, an ancient Black man with secrets of his own who acts as QED’s mentor and savior, the Morningwood line would be doomed to end, or at best spend life in a federal penitentiary.

Praise for The Square Root of Texas

“The Square Root of Texas has everything you've ever wanted in an international-intrigue thriller set in a small Texas town. It has rednecks, the NRA, the FBI, Homeland Security, Russians, action, vice and sex, religion, metaphysics, and about everything else you can think of. The unlikely tale of QED Morningwood is told with a smart, satirical wit, a gift for clever turns of phrase, homey local dialect, and similes and metaphors that have a life of their own.”—Elaine Hatcher, professor of English, Dallas Baptist University

“This is over-the-top, you-gotta-be-kidding-me-but-I-don't-care-'cause-I'm-having-too-much-fun silliness of the first order.” —Alan Hutcheson, author of Boomerang and The Baer Boys

“Don't drink milk while reading this book, unless you want to make a mess. My wife got mad because I kept randomly laughing each night as I read this book. I love the disclaimers and footnotes throughout the whole book and am looking for the next caper from QED.” —John Witte, owner of Sit ʼn Sip Books

“The Square Root of Texas is a surprising romp that hits you square between the eyes. Young Kid, his cronies, and a slew of misbegotten villains spew a stew of conspiracy delight. I laughed from one page to the next because it’s all true, mostly, a good deal of the time anyway. That voice of the storyteller truly seeps in. Let this caravan of comedy lift your day when you look over your shoulder at our world’s misadventures.” —Ron Seybold, author of Stealing Home and Viral Times