The Golden Ear

This novel has elements of a modern Western, historical fiction, and a family saga, and many moments of action, romance, heroism, and machismo.It is fiction, but its starting point is based on the reported kidnapping of an American Consul in Puebla, Mexico, in 1920 during the turbulent times of the Mexican Revolution. A ransom was paid. Shortly thereafter the consul resigned his post, bought a sugar mill, and later he started the nation's largest bank and controlled the movie industry....
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This novel has elements of a modern Western, historical fiction, and a family saga, and many moments of action, romance, heroism, and machismo.It is fiction, but its starting point is based on the reported kidnapping of an American Consul in Puebla, Mexico, in 1920 during the turbulent times of the Mexican Revolution. A ransom was paid. Shortly thereafter the consul resigned his post, bought a sugar mill, and later he started the nation's largest bank and controlled the movie industry. His name was William Jenkins. The character of Willard Riley is loosely based on the kidnapping incident.The novel features the young fighter pilot, Tell Cooper, who flew with the Lafayette Escadrille in France in World War I; his newfound friend, Willard Riley, the amoral consul; his first love, the exotic Toña; the loathsome Jorge Rubio whom he calls "Toad"; the charismatic Johnny Ávalos, who might have been president of Mexico had it not been for one perceived flaw in his character; and Helen Anderson, the newspaperwoman who would marry Cooper and write a history of the Riley empire. Her manuscript was titled "Riley's Golden Ear."The Golden Ear takes place mostly in Mexico, but there are parts that concern Cooper's son flying Spitfires in the Battle of Britain during World War II, as well as the exploits of Toña's son, a U.S. naval carrier-based fighter pilot in the same war. The fighter pilot fabric in the novel is authentic: At the tender age of 20, the author shot down five Japanese aircraft just before the end of the war.Austin Olsen (1924-2007) had two other novels published: Corcho Bliss, Simon and Schuster, 1972, and Apache Ambush, Kensington, 2000.