Winners — Eric B. Martin

Chimney sweep Shane McCarthy has three great loves in life: a whip-smart wife named Lou, pickup basketball, and his booming hometown, San Francisco. While Lou hunts easy millions at the height of the dot-com frenzy, Shane fills his extra hours searching for a troubled player from his weekly hoops game -- a twenty-year-old named Sampson who's disappeared, leaving only a bulging duffle bag behind. Following a trail that winds through Pacific Heights parties and the projects, Shane unravels a mystery that links his wife's new world to the missing Sampson and his family. 


Evoking the glitter of 'The Great Gatsby' and the pulsing streets of 'Clockers', 'Winners' is both a chronicle of a surreal historic moment and a gripping portrait of a man caught between two worlds. A novel of startling scope and ambition, 'Winners' reaches into the hearts and minds of would-be millionaires and ghetto toughs, businesswomen and single moms, gym-rat moguls and pissed-off slackers, all grasping for the gold ring of something better.