The Walls of Jericho

The story is set in the fictional town of Jericho, Kansas. David Constable comes to Jericho to practice law. He becomes fast friends with Tucker Wedge, owner of the newspaper. David meets and marries Belle Dunham. The friendship between David and Tucker continues until Tucker returns from Illinois with a wife of his own, Algeria Wedge. The Walls of Jericho is essentially the story of the ambitious Algeria Wedge who breaks the friendship between the two men. Paul Wellman uses no subtleties or shaded comparisons. He has painted a full-bodied canvas of a locale and an era which have been neglected in American fiction. There are many Jerichos in the sunflower state and few better novels have ever been written of them.—The New York Times, February 2, 1947.
The book was made into a movie in 1948 and starred Cornel Wilde, Kirk Douglas, Linda Darnell and Anne Baxter.