Money Like Sand

Money Like Sand brings back shoreline reporter Bernie Ruane! It is the second in the Jersey Shore Noir Originals series starring Bernie and his sketchy friends, family and hangers-on living down the shore in Belmar, New Jersey. It's a story about greed and what it does. It starts, long ago, with a secret gift of deep gratitude to Native American allies by George Washington in the last days of his Administration, a gift that threatens to upend today's social and economic order. It's based on fact and folklore, speculation and greed. In Money, the last words of a dying art gallery owner send Bernie on a quest to find an unknown painting worth "millions." His search pits him against an ancient clan of Native Americans said to have disappeared over two hundred years ago, the New Jersey mob, and the US Government. He discovers the painting is worth much more than money. It holds clues to a secret arrangement consummated in America's earliest days. It's art to die, and kill, for. Money made it to the semifinalist round in the 2015 James Jones First Novel Fellowship contest, meaning it was selected in the top 30 of over 675 submissions.