Money Matters A Novel

Jenny is twenty-seven, bright, and barely surviving on two part-time jobs. One of them involves reviewing surveillance tapes for a major Los Angeles detective agency. But she soon finds herself out of her depth when a friend persuades her to investigate a woman's disappearance. Her life is about to be upended. Just getting by will no longer work.

The action takes place in Los Angeles over six days surrounding the mid-term election in 2010. Jenny's amateur sleuthing leads her into a web of intrigue that uncovers connections between big money, the election battle over immigration, and a drug cartel. The other employer for whom Jenny works is the CEO of a leading mutual fund company whose brother is running for governor on an anti-immigration platform part financed by his wealthy brother. When Jenny discovers that the CEO's house has been bugged by the detective agency she works for the sinister web connecting politics, big money and the cartel threatens her life. Her major ally is the director of an immigrants' rights organization to whom she is strongly attracted.

Before her search is over Jenny is forced to abandon almost every aspect of her exiting life. Will she remake herself? Or will she sink under the powerful forces of big money? This short novel casts an exciting, ironic, and humorous light on the dark underside of a Los Angeles culture that is still dealing with these issues today.