Palo Verde: The Wanted Poster
Martin Hollingshead

PublishAmerica
$16.95

A historical mystery in western setting

The time is 1905. Texas oil is not yet a big industry. Spindletop blew in 1901 generating interest in the Beaumont area of East Texas and inspiring oil speculators to hunt for petroleum elsewhere in the state. For most of those living in Texas sour ponds, salt domes, and paraffin soil do not yet portend to much other than bad grazing land for their cattle. Many of the former Confederates, or children of Confederates have come to Texas in search of a better life than that being offered in the ravaged South. Yankees and their ideas are not held in much respect by these independent hardy folk.

Photography is beginning to be used to record crime scenes, fingerprints have been recognized since the 1850s as useful to identify criminals and lands and grooves are used to prove a bullet came from a particular weapon.