Books: Copper in the Hills

THE BLUE CHIP (307 pp.)—Ysabel Rennie—Harper ($3.50).

Jim Packer was a good mining engineer with a speculator's itch. He had an unshakable belief in America, in progress, and in his own good luck. Like most people in Arizona of the '80s, he dreamed of striking it rich. His son Tommy heard him say that he would "rather not live at all than live a failure." But he never really expected to fail, and his dream came real when a crusty old prospector partner led him to one of the richest copper strikes in Arizona. With the Blue Chip mine making him richer...