Synopsis

As the U. S. and global economies headed toward a major recession in the second year of the 21st Century, companies worldwide struggled to survive. Two strong business men who run a colossal international management consulting and accounting firm battle against one another to save it, each proposing a different way of preventing its collapse. One is the CEO and founder, the other the senior-most executive who expects to succeed as head of the company. The CEO is an amoral, ruthless, megalomaniac; the other partner—and the narrator—is a principled, but flawed idealist. Once they were as close as father and son, the older man mentor to the younger. Now their relationship collapses along with the economy, as their firm loses, one after another, its once-blue-chip corporate clients. A series of financial crimes ensue, instigated by the CEO: fraudulent accounting to help clients seemingly make their estimated profits and insider trading to help him reap millions in personal profits. With the end in sight he absconds with millions of dollars held in trust in a partners' bonus pool. The protagonist then begins hunting him down, with the skills of a private eye.