David Rountree

I am a retired native Houstonian and the author of nine self-published books written over the past seven years. My work grew out of serious genealogical research rather than literary ambition. While investigating my family history through Ancestry and contemporaneous newspaper archives, I uncovered documented lives, conflicts, and scandals that were both stranger and more revealing than family lore suggested.

One surprising discovery shaped my first work. Oscar Rountree, a previously unknown cousin, was a former Texas Ranger who was murdered in a San Antonio bar in 1910. His killer was not a drifter or a criminal stereotype, but a wealthy attorney, county judge, and member of the Texas House of Representatives. It led first to D.B. Chapin, a book that ultimately proved more historically significant than its original inspiration and was deeply entwined with South Texas history. The book is available in both English and Spanish.

Although I was an indifferent student of history in school, time has a way of sharpening curiosity and lowering tolerance for oversimplified narratives. As an adult, I became interested not in heroic myths but in how real people behaved when power, money, morality, and self-interest collided. That interest informed my historical fiction, Bad Versus Evil, and later, Naughty Victorians, a nonfiction examination of hypocrisy, scandal, and social pretense.

My fiction titles include The Martian’s Black Box, Psycho in Blue, Serial Retribution, and Perceived Unfair Advantage. My nonfiction work Joseph Wesley Newman examines a deeply unconventional inventor who believed he had solved the world’s energy problem, a claim the U.S. Patent Office firmly rejected. I approach such subjects with curiosity, documentation, and skepticism in equal measures.

Additional works include Really! I Can’t Make This S**t Up, a collection of improbable but true short stories, and The Joys of Sports Betting, which explains the industry while making clear why enthusiasm should be tempered with caution.

Outside of writing, my interests include classical music and bowling, an unlikely pairing that has nonetheless proven compatible.