Francis Smith, Oil Finder, is a novel situated in the petroleum industry in New Orleans in the early 1960's. Francis returns to New Orleans from a period of duty as a geologist in Libya with the intentions of finding a wife. He quickly meets a student at Tulane University and a romance begins. He reports for his new assignment with Stumble Oil Company and is handed the task of evaluating a new lease that covers a half million acres of south Louisiana marshland. The program to explore this acreage results in a wildcat well that is drilled into a deep, dangerous, abnormal pressure section in the search for gas. Francis discovers that a number of employees are stealing from Stumble Oil and has to make a decision as to what to do about this. Each of these themes is followed to its conclusion against the background of New Orleans and its surrounding area.