It’s 1967 and Surf City Police Chief Mickey Cleary has a problem: less than a week before the Memorial Day weekend, a battered corpse has washed up on her New Jersey beach. When the body is identified as the teenage son of powerful Mafia boss Dante “Danny Rags” Ragone, Mickey is pressured to declare the death an accident and close the book. Once one of Philadelphia’s first female beat cops, she understands the looming potential for bloodshed and demands an autopsy by the State’s Medical Examiner. Hiding the body in the cooler of a local liquor store, Mickey sets in motion a series of events that rapidly draws in warring mob factions, Philadelphia’s Police Commissioner, and a pair of FBI agents who may or may not be on the side of justice.When a cryptic note is discovered tucked in her deputy’s uniform pocket, suspicion mounts that Mickey might be involved in the boy’s death. She allies herself with Ronnie Dunn, a disaffected Viet Nam vet who warns her that nothing is what it seems in the sleepy beach town. Both having been witnesses to horrific violence, they bond together in a desperate attempt to find the truth, prevent a mob war, and stay alive. "A gripping debut. Waters brews a cauldron of colorful characters simmering in an intricate plot. The revelations come in a wild, tense finish. One of the best books I'll read this year." Robert Dugoni, #1 Amazon, Wall Street Journal and New York Times Bestselling Author Growing up in South Jersey, I went "down the shore" every chance I could. Levels of success were clearly defined by whether you could spring for a day, a weekend, a week or - the Holy Grail of all acquisitions - a House at the Shore. In younger years it was stalking the decks of the  Lucy Evelyn . or risking serious spinal injury at a Trampoline Park; surf fishing for flounder or blowfish then literally walking across LBI to go crabbing on the Bay side; the putt-putt boats with lawn mower engines your dad could rent to take you "deep sea" fishing on Little Egg Harbor; the Stink House in August. There weren't enough days or enough summers to do it all. Adolescence and the 60's surf culture arrived together. Hanging out at the original Ron-Jon in Ship Bottom and trying to figure out but too embarrassed to ask what Sex Wax was for; transistor radios and beach blankets; a world without beach tags; concerts at The Steel Pier or taking a date for a "classy" dinner at the Tuckahoe Inn. Jellyfish, Sand Crabs and the dreaded Undertow; the Anchorage and Dunes'til Dawn.  Trying to get in to Tony Mart's without getting carded. When the two lanes of Highway 9 really could take you anywhere. That's the Shore I remember and the one I wanted to write about. I've been away for a long time but the sand never leaves your shoes, really.  Surf City Confidential  is pure fiction set in a real place; a place that doesn't get much literary attention, although it should. While I was getting my writing degree a professor said there is always the book you want to write but sometimes there's the book you  have  to write; this one may be be the latter. I hope you enjoy it and that it brings back as many good memories for you reading it as it did for me writing it. After more than thirty years in Iowa I have lost my SJ accent. But no matter how often or how hard I shake my shoes, that sugary white sand never comes out.