“There were oil wells everywhere. 1,100 in the city limits alone. In downtown Kilgore there was even an area where the marble floors of a national bank had been excavated and a slew of derricks sprouted skyward: it is known as the World’s Richest Acre.

 

But below the surface of this peaceful community there was a crime being committed. People were siphoning off oil from their neighbor’s property. It came to be known as The Slant Hole Drilling Affair.  And I grew up smack dab in the middle of this crime drama.   

 

All in all, hundreds were questioned. Some were scions of the most wealthy families in the country; others mere roustabouts who could barely rub two nickels together. The FBI along with the Texas Rangers scoured Gregg and Rusk Counties looking for someone…anyone to talk. But to this day, not one soul has ever served a minute’s time for these crimes. It is the largest unsolved business crime in America.

 

With the Slant Hole Drilling as a backdrop Beneath Us, my latest novel, is the story of lost love mingling with the dark secrets of two families from different rungs on a very congested social ladder and the deceit that occurred 3,500 feet beneath them in the world’s richest oil field.”