Crimson Stained the Bayou Pines: A Novel of Political Struggle in the Deep South

In the early 1900s, socialist Walter Dietz arrives in a remote section of the American gulf coast. Lake Charles, Louisiana, is a small Cajun town, bustling with lumberjacks and wealthy sawmill owners. At the time of Dietz’s arrival, the economic affluence of the wealthy is increasing, widening the social gap between the business owners and the men working in the pine woods to the north.

Dietz sees this widening gap as an opportunity—an opportunity to become a different kind of missionary. H...