Fire in the Hole

The award-winning Fire in the Hole is the tale of a young widowed lawyer swept up in the violence of the famous Colorado coal strike of 1913-1914 known to history as the Ludlow Massacre. Opposed by the coal companies, the union, Wall Street, and the federal government, Alex hatches a scheme involving the president to overturn martial law and settle the strike. Thus a gripping tale unfolds of a woman who dares to go beyond the conventions of the day to find freedom and justice amid a power struggle so terrifying it would wrench the nation's conscience for decades.

Sybil Downing is a fourth-generation Coloradan and the award-winning author of numerous books, including Fire in the Hole, Ladies of the Goldfield Stock Exchange, and Tom Patterson: Colorado Crusader for Change. She is the co-founder of Women Writing the West and serves on the National Advisory Committee for the Women of the West Museum.