Book Description

A cautionary tale of a big real estate deal gone bad: A cesspool’s brew of money, mud, murder, and blood. After a messy break-up with his old law firm, young attorney Nick Shuman gets in over his head, when he takes on a big case brought by a small but wealthy California landowner. It’s 2007 and the price of real estate is exploding. Shuman’s new client, Joe Munoz, is being sued by a large insurance company with an army of attorneys looking to complete a massive development deal in an unspoiled corner of Southern California. Only Joe and his key piece of land, “Little Rocking-Horse Ranch,” stand in the way. But Joe has a past that adds a wild card to the mix: an unsolved, decades-old murder tied to him and the ranch, and his murky reasons for refusing to sell it for the huge sum offered. To fend off their mighty foes and launch their own quest to tilt against the windmills of Big Business and Institutionalized Power, Nick and Joe assemble a rag-tag cast of unlikely allies and characters. In a constant game of catch-up, things get dirty fast. A high-powered, crooked law firm and the Russian mob complicate matters for the under-manned defenders of “Little Ranch.” The stakes rise faster than the real estate market, as evidence disappears, and lives and loves are cut down or ruined. The September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers and the inescapable crush of The Great Recession shatter this deadly struggle for everyone.