The brilliantly conceived historical mystery will forever change the way you look at those who endured and survived hard times when the discovery of oil breathed hope into communities that were dying from burnt crops and wilted cotton stalks.
As one reviewer said the award-winning Boom Town Saga, “Combine The Grapes of Wrath and maybe a little Huck Finn and perhaps you will understand the magnitude of this story set in a small town in East Texas in the Great Depression. It should go down as a classic in American literature.”
An oil boom has broken the back of the Great Depression. A small East Texas town is awash with new names and new faces, and no one knows whose eyes belong to the man who carried a lovely fancy dancer from the ballroom of a Sporting House into the darkness of a rainy night and killed her.
Was it a crime of passion? Did she reject him?
Was it someone from her past?
Or was he as unfamiliar as the next roustabout or drifter walking the streets?
A preacher has set up the tent for his traveling Love and Salvation Show on the road beside the courthouse. A strange hunchback with a voice of doom casts an uneasy shadow across the town. Where did he come from? Nobody knows.
Men are spending their hard-earned money with dime-a-dance girls, looking for love, a wife, or something more sinister. Everyone has a secret. Whose secret sent the lovely Louise Fontaine to a muddy grave?
And who is the small boy who stepped off the train with a paper note attached to his coat that said: My name is Ollie Porter. My daddy is Oliver Porter. He works in the oilfields. Does anyone know where he is? Is the boy connected to the fancy dancer or, perhaps, the killer? Or is he just a waif in search of a home?
Ashland is a town without law. It is threatening to explode from the mass of humanity crowding into the oilfield. Is the death of the fancy dancer only the first? And can Doc, the charming and lovable con man, and Eudora, the beautiful widow, catch a killer before they find out who’s the next to die?
Review: Follow Sheriff Clayton Shoot across the mountains and up the narrow, rocky trail to Lost Mine Peak. It is a trip you will remember for a long time. “It’s a dangerous little county you got here, Sheriff.” Two brutal crimes a… Read more
Go inside the mystery-writing mind of Joe Congel on an archived edition of Meet The Author Broadcast and Podcast, hosted by Rob and Joan Carter of Indie Book Source. Joe Congel grew up in Syracuse, New York, and currently lives in beautiful… Read more
The Stock Show, see, is that place where good folk from near and far and maybe next door or from way down yonder on that country dirt road all come together. TEN-GALLON HAT OR GIMME CAP, STARCHED JEANS OR DENIMS WITH HOLES IN THE KNEES,… Read more
Mount Washington rises majestically above the Passaconaway Valley of love lost and love gone forever. Beneath the stormy summit of Mount Washington, he took a little walk one afternoon, and she waited on him until she could wait no more. I WAS A… Read more
