Ballads, Banjos & Bullets: Trailing The Tangled Lives of IRA 'Dick' Brown & Fannie Garrettson by Chris Penn is a story that begins when in January 1907 a white-haired visitor to Los Angeles spun some colourful tales to a reporter on a local newspaper. Ira 'Dick' Brown's story was published in The Los Angeles Herald. The author having stumbled on the story some years ago has brought the story up todate with his research into contemporary records. 'Dick'Brown would meet Fannie Garrettson the woman who would feature in his life for a number of years in 1874 at McDaniel's Thratre, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Both had very colourful lives after they separated in 1878.