"Esto no es cosa de armas" (this is not a matter for weapons). These were the last words of Don Francisco Gutierrez before Alonzo W. Allee shot and killed him and his son, Manuel Gutierrez. What began as a simple dispute over Allee's unauthorized tenancy on a Gutierrez family ranch near Laredo, Texas, led not only to the slaying of these two prominent Mexican landowners but also to a blatant miscarriage of justice.

In this engrossing account of the 1912 crime and the subsequent trial of Allee, Beatriz de la Garza delves into the political, ethnic, and cultural worlds of the...