When five-year-old Christi Meeks disappeared and the police couldn’t find her, her father turned to Bill Dear, one of the most controversial private detectives in Texas.
June 1985

Features
By her dedication, her rigor, her almost overwhelming enthusiasm, Diana Kennedy forced a generation of cooks to take Mexican food seriously and jolted Texans into realizing that there is life beyond the combination dinner.
My quest for this magnificent silver fish drew me to a lonely stretch of the Texas coast night and day, summer and fall, over and over again.
Someday, when the weather is just right, glider pilot Joann Shaw will sail across the sky, alone among the silent and shifting clouds, for hundreds of miles.
When the summer heat starts to get to you, cool your heels by plunging into an icy green swimming hole.
The six freshman Republican congressmen from Texas are young, angry, and energetic. The only question is, can they be effective too?
Web
Recipe from chef Luigi, Nero’s Italian, Dallas A double breast of chicken stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, fresh goat cheese and spinach, in a fresh roasted garlic cream sauce. 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, split 1/4 lb. goat cheese 1/4 lb. sun-dried tomatoes 2 eggs, lightly beaten…
DESPITE ITS LOCATION on Dallas’ trendy restaurant row, Nero’s has a tucked-in feel reminiscent of the kind of cozy Italian place one might find downtown in New York City or scattered throughout Boston’s North End. Dark and atmospheric inside, strings of tiny white tea lights hang haphazardly from the vintage…
Miscellany
Can Ross Perot get the Indians to sell out Manhattan again? Why Kent Hance may not run; roll out the pork barrel; shoot down that trial balloon.
Topping it off; pickin’ on T. Boone; traveling the byways; finding relief.
Columns
Larry McMurtry’s grand epic, Lonesome Dove, opens with blue snake-eating pigs and goes on to describe unflinchingly the settlement of the American West. Mark Singer’s Funny Money examines the biggest bank failure in U.S. history.
Every day the citizens of Cameron rise and shine to the radio antics of Eugene “Unk” Smitherman and his creation, a lovable rube named Silas Strausberger.
Heartbreakers has a drowsy punch, but it still stings; 1918 deposits us in nostalgia; My First Wife is all psychodrama, no wit; Sylvia is refined, reserved—and despairing.
Jazz singers defy definition. They may scat, or they may not; they may be veterans or newcomers; they may decline the label of jazz singer. But their music always gives them away.
Reporter
Austin’s infamous Iguana; Lucas’ latest story; San Antonio’s dedicated Dodgers; Tascosa’s secretive spirits.