Runners is Book Two of Phil Oakley’s Oakleys series. Walter and Ada Oakley have made themselves model citizens of Telegraph, Texas, and are watching their children come apart — rum running, train-hopping, one child dead and another on the wrong side of the law — as Prohibition gives way to the Depression and then the war.
From the author of Little Hatchet, this gripping historical saga continues—a powerful story of resilience, family, and the price of ambition.
Walter Oakley and his wife, Ada, used the westward expansion of America to establish themselves as model citizens in the town of Telegraph, Texas. Now, they watch in despair as their children lurch from one crisis to another — rum running, train-hopping outlaws, shattered dreams. With one child dead and another on the wrong side of the law, Walter and Ada struggle to keep their younger children on the straight and narrow. But trouble and temptation beckon as Prohibition and the Great Depression give way to the horrors of World War II. Will hope survive the chaos?
Category: Historical Fiction
Publication Date: March 31, 2025
ISBN (paper): 978-1-965766-14-9
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-965766-15-6
List Price: $22.95
Pages: 206
Trim size: 6 x 9
Runners follows Walter and Ada Oakley through the middle generation of the family saga. Having built respectable lives in Telegraph, Texas, they watch their children fall into rum running, outlawry, and worse — one dead, one on the wrong side of the law — while Prohibition gives way to the Great Depression and then to the Second World War.
Little Hatchet is Book One, Runners is Book Two, and Austin Sunrise is Book Three and the conclusion. The saga runs from the post-Civil War New Mexico frontier through postwar Texas, following one family across three generations.
It follows Walter Oakley, whose story begins as a twelve-year-old in Little Hatchet. New readers can start here, but the earlier book is what makes Walter and Ada’s situation land.
Prohibition through the Great Depression and into the Second World War, in and around Telegraph, Texas.
Book One in The Oakleys Series
Little Hatchet is the first installment in Phil Oakley’s Oakleys series, a family saga loosely based on his own kin. After the Civil War, James Oakley moves his family to Little Hatchet Creek in New Mexico. When his youngest son is taken from the front porch, twelve-year-old Walter Oakley goes after him — and the story runs from there into Prohibition-era Texas.
Austin Sunrise closes Phil Oakley’s Oakleys trilogy. Brothers Brooks and Ray Oakley take opposite roads out of the family — one through the frozen ground of the war, the other through Austin cafes, the oil fields, and the postwar restaurant boom. It follows Little Hatchet and Runners.
