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Squatter’s Gold (The Sam White Homeless Mysteries)

A crime mystery of murder, gangs and found treasure; A story of colorful homeless campers and their personal struggles; The politics of homelessness and advocates at an interfaith center; protest, justice and redemption.

Squatter’s Gold is a novel that weaves together history of the California Gold Rush, the Squatter’s Riots of 1850, and modern Sacramento.

A hearing-impaired homeless man is shot and killed.

Sam White, the director of Saint Frances homeless services, knows this man and works with his camping partners to seek justice for the murder of a man that it seems no one else cared about.

It turns out the homeless man had found a cache of gold hidden in the trunk of a tree and tries to cash some in. His fatal mistake, though, is taking his gold to a check cashing business owned by a crook in cahoots with a criminal gang.

Where there’s gold, though, there’s blood, and Sam knows he has to get to the hidden gold before the gang returns so he can prevent their escape and serve justice. Can he pull it off in time, or will he be the next victim?

The cast of haunted, but at times funny, heroes and villains and scenes of charity, murder, drug use, recovery and civil disobedience are inspired by actual events drawn from the author’s thirty-five years of experience as a street activist, social worker and creator of homeless programs in Sacramento, California.

＂Squatter’s Gold a compelling, vivid read whose underlying consideration of social issues will linger in the mind as much as its story of a struggle for gold and new opportunities.＂
- Midwest Book Review