Publisher's Synopsis
The year is 1947 and Gina Peterson, daughter of Edward Peterson, a wealthy oil wildcatter, joins with some friends after college seeking to create a communal farm. This group finds another small group with apparently the same idea who have access to a ranch in the Hill Country. Gina and her naïve college friends soon discover they have aligned themselves with a more militant group. This group, led by the ranch owner Sam West, wants to set up Texas as an independent country, dismantle industrialization, which they feel is powered by oil, and return to an agrarian society of equality and moderation. When West discovers Gina is from a wealthy oil family, he decides to hold her for ransom and force her father to finance their revolution.
Ellie Adder, PI will be hired by Edward Peterson to discover where his daughter has gone. This novella is Ellie's first departure from being featured in radio or film. The novella format gives Ellie more scope to solved a complicated case and bring in a large cast of Texas Hill Country characters. Included is an Ellie Adder short story: Ellie's First Case. In 1928, when Ellie was a student in college, another student asks her to solve a perplexing problem that is plaguing his little sister. At first glance, it would seem this first case takes Ellie into a supernatural realm. Will Ellie's determination to be rational and logical lead to a mundane solution or will some mystery persist?
