W E Smith

I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues W E Smith

An Australian multi-national's plan to construct a massive open-pit copper mine in the scenic Santa Rita Mountains incites the vehement opposition of the local community, nature lovers of all stripes and the Tohono O'odham First Nation, for whom the Santa Ritas are ancestral legacy. When Dilip Chakraborty, sole full-time reporter at the Halston Gazette, sets his sights on the story (and more especially, the shadowy machinations of a right wing business group, the Southern Arizona Progress League, to secure approval for the mine) he embroils his friend and editor Tom Rogers in an increasingly uncomfortable dilemma. Gazette publisher Charles Rogers, Tom's father and boss, is a member of the SAPL and fervent proponent of the mine, while Jinny, the local artist who has captivated Tom's heart, must stand inalterably with her Tohono O'odham relations against this desecration of sacred ground.