Publisher's Synopsis
Part-aboriginal rural reporter and cattleman,Ned Barron travels Queensland and New South Wales in Australia writing stories of the problems and achievements of the West. He wages an endless fight against the mining companies and their drilling gangs and invasion of properties as well as their failure to restore the mines when they leave. One night he writes a satirical article about the Coal Queen, Laura Barnett, who inherited the giant Barnett Mining when she was 21 and lives a life of wealth and privilege. She's touring Queensland and Ned can't get a bed and snipes at her in print. Barnett Mines sues him and his organisation and mean to crush them, he's told. But he's met and fallen in love with a locum doctor who also tours the West and is bent on finding her again. Things are getting serious with the law case when Laura Barnett appears at his door, wanting to cancel everything and offering him a job as her personal assistant. He declines until she points out that he's preached for years about the wrongs of the industry and now's his chance to do something from the inside. He agrees and goes to Perth with Laura, moving into her mansion and being the toyboy, until it's time to act. Problems . . . Laura falls in love with him and wants to marry him but Ned has his loved doctor to find. Laura never gives up but, together they begin to make the changes in her company that she wants. She never has been in control of the giant conglomeration. He fixes just about all the problems that he planned to and tells Laurie that he'll soon go home. She's beautiful and sweet and he's strongly tempted to stay but he has an obsession with Dr. Sally Lancaster and must go. But Laura isn't ready to yield him up just yet . . .
