God's Money, written by Tad Hutton, a 2009 GAYA Award finalist, is based on a true story, so recent that the ending is still in play.
In 2007, a ship in the Palawan Straits of the South China Sea goes missing. The Straits are notorious for acts of piracy, directed at the more than fifteen per cent of the world's ship traffic.
Two years after the disappearance and suspected hijacking of the freighter Pa'ua, millions of dollars are uncovered on an atoll by fisherman from Kalayaan Town on the island of Ramos in the Philippines.
The money turns out to be part of a laundering operation by a Manila drug cartel. The cartel comes looking for its money as well as for the pirate named Ahmad the Knife who attempted to hijack its ship. The Catholic Church becomes part of the story when a greedy monsignor named Monsignor Barracuda by the townsfolk asserts his rights to the money. To further complicate the plot, five nations who claim sovereignty over the island suddenly become interested in claiming the cash.
Meshed into this net of greed and intrigue are simple villagers, a timid but holy priest, and a renegade American hiding from a US Treasury investigation. A romantic tension evolves to a triangle among a beautiful Filipina, a naval officer, and the much older American. Other sharply defined characters are an autistic orphan who communicates with dolphins, an ex-soldier from Japan who lives as a hermit above the village, the avaricious monsignor who wants the money, and a Malay pirate who terrorizes all who stand between him and his treasure.
God's Money is chock full of action, comedy, fear, and a final, gripping redemption. Anyone who saw and enjoyed the 1989 classic action-comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy would place this novel right on the same level. The book and its characters will be remembered long after the last page is turned.
