New York : Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2021.

Book

First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition.

451 pages ; 21 cm.

English

9781982183448, 9781476710792 : HRD, 1476710791 : HRD, 9781476710808, 9781982183448, 1982183446

"A novel"--Cover.

"Copyright 2014"--Title page verso.

It is 1943 and the Dust Bowl is bearing down when sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends as Weldon puts a bullet through the rear window of Clyde's stolen automobile. Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland and his sergeant, Hershel Pine, escape certain death in the Battle of the Bulge and encounter a beautiful young woman named Rosita Lowenstein hiding in a deserted extermination camp. Eventually, Weldon and Rosita fall in love and marry and, with Hershel, return to Texas to seek their fortunes. There they enter the domain of jackals known as the oil business and later the Hollywood film industry. They meet Roy Wiseheart - a former marin aviator haunted by guilt for deserting his squadron leader over the South Pacific - and Roy's wife, Clara, a vicious anti-Semite who is determined to make Weldon and Rosita's life a nightmare. It will be the frontier justice upheld by Weldon's grandfather, Texas lawman Hackberry Holland, and the legendary antics of Bonnie and Clyde that shape Weldon's plans for saving his family from the evil forces that lurk in peacetime America and threaten to destroy them all.

"In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland encounters Bonnie and Clyde after one of their notorious armed robberies. Weldon is smitten by Bonnie, but a confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun, unsure whether it hit its mark. Ten years later, Weldon barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein -- a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as Bonnie Parker. The three return to Texas, where Weldon gets in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business. In just a few years' time Weldon will spar with the jackals of the industry, rub shoulders with dangerous men, and win and lose fortunes twice over. But it is the prospect of losing his one true love that will spur his most reckless act yet -- one inspired by that encounter long ago with the outlaws of his youth."--From back cover.

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