"Some of the largest exporters of crude oil are colluding to bring down the price of oil, at great cost to their national coffers. Governments are violating core ideologies and national values. It falls to James Blackburn, a successful energy consultant based in Washington, DC, who advises oil traders, oil producing governments as well as the CIA and the US Department of Defense, to uncover a brewing conflict in the Middle East that explains it all. Blackburn finds himself influencing US policy at a time of great turmoil and change in the world. But he gets caught in a quandary as the interests of his various clients clash. His predicament worsens when he gets tangled in the activities of a secret organization aiming to undermine the corrupt regimes of the Gulf. As he juggles the demands of his clients, Blackburn is thrown into an emotional whirlwind. His transatlantic relationship with beautiful OPEC assistant Bianca Kraus is further complicated by a blossoming affection for another woman closer to home. Years later, Blackburn watches history repeat itself, and wonders whether the cataclysmic events that sprung up in the Middle East in recent years--the rise of the Islamic State, the crash in oil prices, and the destruction of Iraq and Syria--could have been predicted and even averted. With an inside look at foreign policy and the geopolitically charged oil industry, The Sacred Sands is a different kind of mystery, one that educates as it entertains, and warns us to beware our history, before it becomes our future"--Back cover.