Eric Dezenhall- Author

Money Wanders is a great read ... full of odd characters, quirky locations and a clever, fresh plot that kept me turning pages. A complicated and hilarious spin campaign makes the mobster a national hero. . . the brilliance of the spin is worth the price alone.

- Baltimore Sun

• • •

A comedic tale of media manipulation and mob bravura ... Boardwalk and family biz, it's a saltwater dandy.

- New York Daily News

• • •

Author Q&A | Plot | Purchase

It's a little unnerving to read a spin doctor's book on how easy it is to dupe everybody - but, in Money Wanders, it's also very funny.

- Philadelphia Daily News

• • •

In his new book Money Wanders, Eric Dezenhall does something audacious. . . he somehow transforms South Jersey into an engaging, endearing, quirky character. Our very own South Jersey - so often dismissed as an anonymous geography of nowhere or anywhere - is so vivid a presence in Money Wanders it practically talks. The region's indelible accent blares from the lips of "Irv the Curve," Dollsy (the waitress), Fuzzy Marino and other kooky characters in Dezenhall's picaresque gangster saga/ political satire. In Money Wanders, narrator Jonah Eastman, the grandson of a legendary Jewish mobster, is dragooned into orchestrating an elaborate media and Internet campaign to remake an Italian gangster into a populist hero. Only in South Jersey.

- Courier-Post

• • •

Booklist Review of Money Wanders
Readers won't believe this is a first novel: sharply drawn characters, delightful dialogue, and a plot that not only delivers the goods but does so with piles of panache. Even the premise is a knockout: an Atlantic City mobster is having trouble getting a casino license, so he hired a prominent Washington pollster to beef up is public image. Dezenhall complicates things by making the pollster the grandson of another prominent mobster, providing him with solid grounding in the shady world of organized crime and giving him a nemesis, a grudge-bearing gangster with a deliciously violent streak.

The author, a noted "spin" expert (he's president of Dezenhall Resources, a Washington crisis-management firm), fills the novel with scads of delicious detail. It is oddly thrilling to watch pollster Jonah Eastman marshal his troops, work his magic, and tell the American public what to think. Not only does Dezenhall have a sure grasp of his material, he also has a nice comedic touch. Like Donald E. Westlake, when he's in his comedy mode, Dezenhall starts us off chuckling, moves us easily to guffaws, and then winds up with some nicely timed belly laughs. (This novel does bear a slight resemblance to Westlake's The Fugitive Pigeon, 1965, but only in its mob-played-for-laughs aspect.)

If this debut is any indication, Dezenhall's career as a novelist shouldn't need much spinning to take off.

- David Pitt

• • •

South Philly Mobsters get a makeover in Fresh Ink
What a gangster wants, a gangster gets. That's one thing we've learned from countless mob-genre movies, books and TV shows. But in Eric Dezenhall's novel, Money Wanders, (St. Martin's Press;$24.95), mob boss Mario Vanni wants a casino license, and he's not getting one on account of his bad rep and criminal record. So he hires young Republican pollster Jonah Eastman -- "College," to Vanni's gangster buddies -- to improve his image. After some reluctance, Eastman is sufficiently "persuaded" and dives into the project, using D.C. spin tactics usually reserved for politicians -- a different breed of crook -- to overhaul Vanni's image. Dezenhall, who now lives in Maryland, based these characters on "the rogues I grew up around in South Jersey," he says, "the ones with cool nicknames who talked to each other on the Boardwalk with cigars hanging out of their mouths."

The novel is set in Atlantic City and Philadelphia and makes use of such local landmarks as Lucy the Elephant in Margate (it's Vanni's secret meeting place) and Ponzio's in Cherry Hill.

- Philadelphia Magazine, "Critic's Pick" for February 2002 "Fresh Ink" column

• • •

CONSULTANT TO THE MOB
Jonah Eastman, a Washington pollster, was a top Republican image meister in his better days. But his reputation is down, and he's just about out when he is summoned by a Philadelphia Mafia don who makes him an offer he can't refuse: improve my image. The mobster, Mario Vanni, wants enough legitimacy to win a big casino license. Conflicted, Eastman obliges, and Money Wanders (St. Martin's) becomes a riotous parody of Internet players, journalists, politicians and pollsters alike. Eastman finds himself surrounded by Atlantic City wise guys, including some who regard the "Ivory League" graduate as a threat to their turf. As he fends them off, Eastman engineers a campaign of phony Internet postings, stages videos and even a U.S. Senate appearance. This is author Eric Dezenhall's debut novel, and the former Reagan White House staffer and co-founder of a crisis management firm knows his stuff. His superb eye and ear at times call to mind such masters of the journalistic novel as Tom Wolfe. This is one for the carry-on bag.

- TIME

• • •

Money may wander but attention never strays in this comic debut.

Dezenhall (Nail 'em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses, not reviewed) nimbly skewers the Internet, journalists, politicians, and public relations spinmeisters and their power to dupe huge numbers of people. He starts with p.r. rep Jonah Eastman, a Beltway pollster, who takes on client Mario Vanni, an Atlantic City mob boss who seeks to clean up his reputation and so snare a casino license. Probing focus groups to find out what issues might move people to back the don of the Jersey Shore, Eastman hears them speak poignantly about fears of local crime. He thereby creates DELVAC (Delaware Valley Anticrime Coalition) and gives it a Web site, which he uses to boost Vanni's image as a family guy who wants to keep drug-dealers away from his kids. Eastman boldly fakes a scene, viewable on the site, of two thugs beating up a drug-dealer, who is really an actor from a Wilmington theater troupe. Also on the site, Eastman creates a "Flackenstein," a nonexistent druglord named "Automatic Bart." "Evanjournalists" (reporters who "don't check...just run with whatever sounds good") parlay the Net information into news stories that suggest antidrug Vanni ordered hits on Bart's dealers. Soon the carefully groomed, thoroughly rehearsed, periodically Xanaxed Mr. Vanni, his popularity soaring, goes to tell a Congressional committee what to do about crime. Stunned silence, which Eastman terms "antiapplause," greets Vanni's nuanced performance. Vanni gets the license. Eastman, himself the grandson of a mafiosi, is left wondering about his own character. His nice, fuzzy romance with a musician from New Jersey (in this treatment, a place of charm) and his keen sense of good and bad people (and their use and abuse of the King's English) suggest he's a guy with depth.

Thoughtful, unpretentious, filled with laugh-out-loud funny scenes and delightfully realized characters. Place your bets on this winner.

- KIRKUS REVIEWS, December 15, 2001

• • •

Many people gauge a novel by how hard it is to put down. By that standard Money Wanders is the best book I have picked up this year. It has all the elements of drama, surprise and humor that make for a great work of fiction. The author, Mr. Dezenhall, brings together the not so disparate elements of political polling and organized crime on the Jersey shore. ... Money Wanders is highly recommended.

Conservative Monitor, W.J. Rayment