Inventing Etta
Etta, Gerald Kolpan, 2009
Katherine Ross as Etta Place 
Kolpan is a television journalist in Philadelphia and this is his first book. About ten years ago he became intrigued that so little is known about the Sundance Kid’s girlfriend; where she was from; what happened to her after accompanying Butch and Sundance to South America. Theories and stories keep circulating but none seem to have credibility. Kolpan decides that Etta Place would be the ideal subject for a novel, allowing the author to invent anything he wants, and why not take his inventions over the top.
Kolpan’s Etta was born Lorinda Reese Jameson to a wealthy Philadelphia banker. Her mother dies in childbirth and Lorinda is raised by her father. She is as at home on a horse shooting a rifle as she is attending a cotillion. When she is 18, her father kills himself and Lorinda discovers her father has lost everything and owes $20,000 to the Sicilian mafia.
Harvey Girls 
Her family lawyer, fearing for her life, forges documents establishing her new identity as Etta Place and gets her a job working as a Harvey girl in Grand Junction Colorado. There she is assaulted by the evil son of the most powerful man in Grand Junction and she not only resists (beating him up) but when he starts shooting at her, Etta kills him. She is arrested and sentenced to be hung.
Pinkerton Detectives 
Her Harvey roommate and outlaw boyfriend break Etta out of jail and together they journey to Hole in the Wall Wyoming, headquarters and hideout of the Butch and Sundance gang. Fred Harvey hires a Pinkerton detective to find and return Etta to Grand Junction to avoid being sued by the punk’s father. Etta now has the Pinkertons and the Mafia after her.
Etta is quickly at work robbing trains. She becomes the gang’s banker, inheriting the skill from her father, and soon amasses a personal fortune. Butch and Sundance send Etta to New York with their fortune that she stores in a Brooklyn safe deposit box.
ER as school girl and uncle TR 
Waiting for Sundance in New York, Etta meets 17 year old Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) giving dance lessons to immigrants. Etta and ER strike up a friendship and they daily meet at a Turkish bath (they have girlish crushes on each other) Etta provides ER with her sex education.
As the Pinkertons close in, Etta takes a job with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, impersonating Annie Oakley, who has left the show after marrying. Teddy Roosevelt (TR), ER’s uncle and President, attends a show where an Eastern European assassin attempts to shoot him. Etta rides to TR’s rescue, knocking the gunman down and disarming him. She is forced to leave the show to avoid publicity (No photo has yet been taken of her so the Mafia and Pinkertons don’t know what she looks like.
Harry Longbaugh aka Sundance and Etta Place 
Sundance finally shows up and they have their photo taken (the only one of Etta) at the DeYoung Studio in New York (photo by Alfred Stieglitz no less) before departing for South America. ER and TR (who now knows the identify of his mysterious savior) have to rescue her from the Pinkertons just prior to her departure and the three hide out at FDRs Hyde Park (get it?) until the boat leaves.
Etta comes down with appendicitis in Argentina and must return to New York for treatment. While she is recovering Butch and Sundance are killed in Bolivia following a robbery. Etta returns to Colorado to pick up her own hidden fortune and returns to New York where she meets the Sicilian godfather where she not only gets him to agree to receive the $20,000 without interest in return for her life but she then talks him into giving the $20,000 to ER for her charities. ER and TR have taken care of the Pinkertons.
Etta returns to her birth name Lorinda Reese Jameson and meets and marries the wild son of a prominent Wall Street investor and becomes a pillar of New York society. She helps FDR get the Presidential nomination. When her husband dies, Etta has multiple affairs with younger men well into her 70s. She dies at age 80 in 1960.
Kolpan should join a competition for best Southern tall story tellers. The best part of the novel is the well researched description of the Pinkertons, operating as a private army-police force, their methods and relationships with real law enforcement groups.