An apparently random massacre at a quiet Greek seaside resort by two American gunmen launches a relentless search for a legendary treasure, an artifact literally beyond price. BLACK SAND is the story of the unlikely collaboration between Detective Lieutenant Teddy Lucas, who runs a squad of earthy, quirky New York street cops, and Major Andreas Vassos of the Hellenic National Police, a man bent on recovering his nation's loss -- and revenging his own.
With the aid of a KGB liasion man and a beautiful curator of ancient manuscripts, Vassos and Lucas follow the twisted threads that lead from the blood-soaked village square in Greece to the rarefied world of multimillionaire collectors and shadowy underworld traffickers in stolen art objects.
BLACK SAND is also the story of a love affair that transforms Teddy Lucas's life, and the forging of a friendship that will lead to his liberation from a haunted past.
With absolute assurance, William J. Caunitz moves his characters through layer upon layer -- both straight and crooked -- of New York and Athens. He brings to life the secret corners of these two great cities, drawing on the arcane and fascinating knowledge that policemen acquire about the two worlds that coexist in all civilized societies where laws maintain a fragile barrier between prey and predator. When that barrier is broken, William Caunitz takes the reader into a world that only cops know about and seldom discuss. This compelling, high-speed narrative will capture and hold the reader's attention from the opening pages of Black Sand to its explosive climax.