In the previous post, I talked about why Picket Line is not a novella. This time, I want to focus on the research that went into this developing novel. Despite my bemusement at how it’s being marketed, Picket Line is a fine piece of writing, and I’m glad people will finally have a chance to read it in the Fall.

When Dutch wrote Picket Line, he was in his post-Western, pre-Crime Fiction period (1969–1974), chasing screenwriting jobs. His agent, H. N. Swanson thought he could have made a career out of the screen trade, and he wasn’t wrong. But Dutch’s first love was novel writing. So he didn’t develop Picket Line as a screenplay first but conceived it as Act One of a novel. If a deal was forthcoming, he’d finish the book.

To prepare for Picket Line, Dutch immersed himself in the gritty realities of migratory farm labor and the labor strikes that defined the era of the late Sixties and early Seventies. Act One of Picket Line describes Mexican American melon pickers caught in the opening moves of a labor strike in South Texas. The narrative builds through tense encounters between strikers and law enforcement, with personal rivalries and moral conflicts rising as the threat of violence looms.

Dutch’s research grounded Picket Line in reality. His primary source for crafting Vincent Mora—a former priest stepping back into the fray—emerges directly from Frank Kostyu’s Shadows in the Valley: The Story of One Man’s Struggle for Justice. Kostyu’s book chronicles the real-life work of Ed Krueger, a minister fighting for justice in the Rio Grande Valley. Dutch’s Picket Line notes indicate that Mora would have emerged as the central character in Act Two; a man of conscience drawn back into activism and posing a real threat to the growers. Dutch had the whole novel mapped out—his plan was to take Mora deeper into the conflict, escalating the stakes with each chapter.

Dutch planned to begin Act Two with his version of the International Bridge incident in Roma, Texas. On October 24, 1966, twelve striking farmworkers blockaded the bridge to stop growers from bringing in strikebreakers from Mexico. They were arrested, and made national headlines. This scene would be followed by a major protest march and an inevitable confrontation.

Supporting his treatment was a bibliography full of field reporting and sociological inquiry. John Gregory Dunne’s Delano: The Story of the California Grape Strike captured the human cost and political stakes of the 1965–1970 Delano Grape Strike. The California movement set the template for grassroots farmworker resistance—uniting Filipino and Mexican American laborers under a call for justice and dignity.

Julian Samora’s La Raza: Forgotten Americans explored the social stratification of Mexican Americans in the Southwest—their marginalization in politics, religion, and labor. Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and His Family gave Leonard intimate details of family life in a peasant household. ¡Basta! The Tale of Our Struggle and Merchants of Labor revealed the bureaucratic and human toll of the Bracero Program, a temporary labor initiative between the United States and Mexico that allowed Mexican workers to be employed in the U.S. agricultural and railroad industries. These books show how migrant labor was systemically manipulated.

At the time, César Chávez was in the news almost daily, and Dutch paid close attention to his organizing methods. He also explored the broader world of community activism, particularly the grassroots strategies promoted by Saul Alinsky. Dutch read Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals and a lengthy interview with him that appeared in Ramparts magazine, which had become essential reading in the late 1960s for its coverage of civil rights and labor struggles.

What emerges from all this is a determined attempt to dramatize social history through fiction. But Picket Line is not polemical—it’s not trying to make a statement. Dutch just did what he always did: he built a world filled with credible characters who moved, talked, and acted in a world shaped by hard truths.

And then he stopped.

Act One ends just as the pot begins to boil. There’s no resolution, just momentum. What makes Picket Line so frustrating—and so fascinating—is that we never got the rest. We see the setup, the themes, the hero about to step forward. But Acts Two and Three were never written. Dutch had the whole novel mapped out in great detail, with plans to push Mora deeper into the conflict—culminating in a confrontation that would shake both sides.

What remains in Act One of Picket Line is pure Elmore Leonard—deeply informed by meticulous research—the foundation of a novel that could have been great.

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Picket Line: The Research

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