When Jean’s father, big Aleck Douglas of the Lazy A Ranch, is convicted of killing the man found shot to death in his kitchen, Jean, sure of his innocence, vows to prove it. But there seems no clue with which to start, except the sudden disappearance of one of her uncle’s cowboys, and to find him requires more money than Jean possesses. Jean becomes a member of a moving-picture company and performs “stunts” and dare-devil feats until she is featured on the films as “Jean of the Lazy A,” and her bank account steadily increases. Suddenly by chance she locates the much-wanted man, only to find that she has been following a blind trail. Then Fate takes a hand, and the sudden dénouement comes with no less surprise to Jean than it will to the reader.
The author has achieved a feat of her own in this book, for a story lies within the story, and interwoven with the adventures of Jean and the crime at the Lazy A is a dramatic tale of the “movies.” Of real people and real life, the author has never written a more fascinating, a more dramatic tale. “Jean of the Lazy A” has the “punch” that the movie director was so eternally demanding of his actors in the moving picture to which Jean gave the same title.
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