Blood and money: A true story of murder, passion and power - Thomas Thompson

Houston — the murder capital of the world — is a city of obsession. Built on an inhospitable swamp, fifty miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, with scant resources, it should not exist — except for the efforts of a core of shrewd and ruthless men, who literally dug the city out of the ground just to prove they could do it, men like Ash Robinson.

Ash Robinson, oil millionaire, one of the most powerful men in Houston, is a man possessed. Although the sound of his name seems melodramatic, conjuring visions of romantic scenes of the Old South, Ash’s life for more than seventy years has not been one that has veered from the beaten path.

In the final years of Ash’s life tragedy strikes, leaving in its wake a legacy of pain and death. On a fateful March morning in 1969 Ash Robinson’s greatest obsession, his daughter Joan, dies. For Ash, his life takes on a new meaning — he is determined to discover the truth.

This is the true story of the circumstances surrounding Joan’s death, the trial for murder of her husband, and the events following the trial. The case forms a fascinating dramatic account of passion, power and murder; as well as a revealing portrait of Houston, a city that retains the roughness and no-holds-barred brutality that characterised the men who made it — a city of blood and money.