Author Description

Set in Hattiesburg Mississippi during the worst of the Great Depression, an eleven year old Jewish girl, HATTIE BONET, must find her father to tell him it's safe to come home. The Sheriff has cleared him of any wrong doing. But that's the least of her father's troubles. There is a resurgence of Hate Groups forming during these hard economic times. And THE ROYAL ORDER OF ZION is blaming Jews, Blacks, and immigrants for their troubles. Franklin D. Roosevelt has just been elected president and vows to make things better. But everyone knows it won't happen overnight. At least not in time to save JACOB BONET, a peddler selling wares from his wagon pulled by his trusted horse, DICKIE. HATTIE'S search takes her through the backwoods of southern Mississippi accompanied by her best friend, CAM IVERSON, a ten year old Creole girl, and a twenty nine year old adult, TRUDY LEES. TRUDY may be the most beautiful girl in Hattiesburg but she still has to spend half her time preventing HATTIE and CAM from killing each other while steering the broken down old Ford searching for clues as to what happened to HATTIE'S father. The journey shakes up the entire town of Hattiesburg as well as most of the country. When the largest radio station in the South, KDKA out of Atlanta, learns of HATTIE'S adventure, they broadcast daily reports heard from the East Coast all the way to the Rocky Mountains. But it also alerts the ROYAL ORDER OF ZION as to HATTIE'S possible whereabouts. Can the Sheriff of Hattiesburg along with the Mayor's wife find the three of them before the Haters do? Southern Mississippi may never be the same.