Currently, I am seeking representation for Shifting Sands, in which a Manhattan artist sets out to prove, twenty-five years after his father’s tragic death,  that dear old dad was a crook and a phony—and categorically wrong about his worthless son.

Once the toast of Manhattan, artist Jamie Wallis has  a greedy agent, a prickly girlfriend, and the lackluster career his late father predicted. He is phobic, addicted, and  almost certainly nuts, given that the cheeky girl on his newest canvas has begun to speak to him. When she hints that his illustrious father had a dark side and his accidental death was anything but, it is the best news Jamie has had in twenty-five years.

A motivational speaker who traveled the world, Theo Wallis dumped his motherless son in boarding school when he was eight, the sole purpose of his visits to chip away at Jamie’s self-esteem. Even Theo’s bizarre death on a Hilton Head beach felt premeditated, a father’s cruel abandonment of his defective son. Now, the possibility that Theo deserved to die gives Jamie hope that he can discredit the man, invalidate his judgment, and take back his life and his art.

Following a trail that should be stone cold, Jamie returns to Hilton Head to track down the players in Theo’s last days. There’s a retired journalist who witnessed the accident, Theo’s ex-girlfriend, still carrying a torch, and an IRS investigator who confirms that young Theo had ties to South Carolina’s Gentlemen Smugglers. Wayward sons of honorable men, they ran a billion-dollar marijuana smuggling operation for more than a decade, until a sting called Operation Jackpot shut them down. Only one kingpin escaped, Theo’s best friend, whose luck ran out the summer Theo died.

The blockbuster tale takes a personal twist when Jamie discovers that the girl he painted was the kingpin’s daughter. What she knows about the man she called Uncle Theo—including a family tragedy, a heinous betrayal, and Theo’s role in the capture of his lifelong friend—will change everything Jamie believes about himself and his place in the world.