Financial Detective

By using true tales of thieves, swindlers, and fraudsters at work, Financial Serial Killers illustrates how these perpetrators get their hooks into investors' wallets, savings accounts, and portfolios - and never let go. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression revealed that thousands of mom-and-pop investors had lost millions to so-called Mini-Madoffs. They are the thieves and con men who had used phony financial acumen to steal investors' money, wipe out savings, and damage lives. Financial Serial Killers reveals the cons, from the grand to picayune, that advisers cultivate with their victims - relationships that are essential to the fraud.

In this “deliciously twisty” (The Wall Street Journal) thriller with “the most clever plot twist of the year” (The Washington Post), expat Kate Moore discovers that a massive terror attack on Paris is not what it seems—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Doorman. “[The...

"A rocket ride of action, political intrigue, and suspense."—San Diego Magazine "A sharp thriller. Russell has us in the palm of his hand."—Chicago Tribune "Ingeniously imagined and skillfully told, Political Suicide must be included in any list of this year's best thrillers."—San Diego Union-Tribune Will Travis is an undercover corporate investigator whose job involves low-key assignments like checking out the service at Washington, DC, hotel bars and reporting back to management. But his evening takes an unexpected turn when he interrupts an attempted murder. Soon, Will is on the ...

In the shadows of Washington DC bureaucracy, hides in plain sight, corruption and political manipulation in the big agency of the federal government. Mira DeSouza identifies discrepancies and irregularities in the ledger entries. With wire transfers vanishing without a trace and closed tax cases with no payments. Silenced from within the agency, Mira decides to seek help outside the agency. Jet is thus pulled into a case that cuts deeper than money laundering or bureaucratic corruption. Jet recognizes that these discrepancies are no coincidences. It is a deliberate manipulation with ...

The Widow’s Ledger A Detective Rourke Thriller — Book One A dead widow. A hidden ledger. A detective marked for death. When homicide detective Evan Rourke investigates a brutal killing in a luxury penthouse, the last thing he expects to find is a handwritten financial ledger signed by a woman who died twelve years ago. Marian Locke—the reclusive widow of a disgraced financier - was found dead in what authorities ruled a suicide. But someone is bringing her back into the spotlight… and leaving bodies in their wake. As Rourke follows the ledger’s cryptic trail, he uncovers a secret ...

In the harsh beauty of Australia's Red Centre, where the sacred monolith of Uluru dominates the landscape, Detective Sarah Reeves is called to investigate when tourist Michael Foster is found dead at the base of the rock at dawn. What begins as a suspicious fall quickly reveals a tangled web of deception. The victim—a controlling Sydney accountant with a penchant for collecting others' secrets—was part of a close-knit group of six friends holidaying together at the luxury Sails in the Desert resort. As Sarah and her partner Tom Bradley interrogate the group, inconsistencies emerge in ...

Lieutenant Ethan Hendricks’ greatest nightmare just also happens to be his grandfather’s newest business venture. Logan Hendricks is thrilled about his brand new detective agency’s first case, but things weren’t turning out the way they were supposed to, including the attempted murder of one of his brand new employees. But he figures their next case, which involves finding a missing sister, should go a lot smoother. How dangerous could it be? Ethan Hendricks wasn’t quite as confident about his grandfather’s new hobby, or that the supposedly straight-forward case of a missing ...

An exhilarating adventure set in the Netherlands, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, and Turkey about stolen art, the mafia, and a father’s vengeance. When researcher Zelda Richardson begins working at a local museum, she doesn’t expect to get entangled with an art theft, knocked unconscious by a forger, threatened by the mob, or stalked by drug dealers. To make matters worse, a Croatian gangster is convinced Zelda knows where a cache of recently pilfered paintings is. She must track down an international gang of art thieves and recover the stolen artwork in order to save those she loves most....

Manhattan. FBI Special Agent Silver Cassidy, the head of a task force that's on a collision course with disaster, finds herself fighting impossible odds to stop a serial killer before he can kill again. Struggling to balance the hunt for a savage predator with the challenges of being a single mom, Silver finds herself thrust into a nightmare of brutality that will demand every ounce of determination she possesses to survive. ----- Q&A with Russell Blake Q: Silver Justice is a departure from your usual action/adventure thrillers. Why a police procedural/serial killer epic featuring a female ...

BANK FRAUD IN MAINE & MURDER IN THE BAHAMAS Stand-Alone Story > Is the discovery of the banker’s body in Thunderball Grotto in The Bahamas linked to the discovery of hidden cash in Maine? The banker lied to both his boss and his wife when he told them he was going to Florida to attend a banking conference. Why he deceived them about the conference and died in the turquoise waters of Thunderball is a mystery. The Bahamian authorities call his death an accidental drowning. The bank suspects an embezzlement and hires Steve Wilson to investigate. Steve’s curiosity about the source of the ...

Has cyber-crime escalated to murder? Forensic accountant Kat Munro puts her traumatic past behind her and begins dating journalist Connor O’Malley, whose investigations into online crime attract the wrong kind of attention. When a colleague’s teenage son goes missing, and his friend’s body is discovered, Kat finds herself working with DS Adam Jackson again. The murder enquiry leads Adam to an exclusive London school where allegations of drugs, gaming fraud and child pornography abound. As he gets deeper into the investigation, Adam is forced to face issues in his private life while ...

A single number saved her life. Grace knew it was only the beginning. Suddenly, danger surrounded her. She was terrified...the pain was relentless. Nothing in her life prepared her for this. She desperately needed somewhere safe...someplace she could hide. Someone she could trust. It was dark...and getting darker. Ronan Hendricks didn’t recognize her voice. Not family...not friends. Probably not an enemy. He didn’t hear animosity in her voice. But he didn’t need the years he’d spent as a detective to recognize what he did hear... Fear. Ethan Hendricks wasn’t thrilled that his ...

Discover this captivating and deeply moving mystery series that will take you around the world and keep you up all night. Hackers are poised ...to take over the Internet.When young FBI special agent Jake Maguire is called to investigate a brutal murder on a Virginia bike path, he never expects the case to take him on a wild ride across the globe. But as he delves deeper into the crime, he realizes it's not just a simple murder - it's an international case of cyber crime, with a trail leading all the way to China. To help him navigate the complexities of the case, Jake teams up with an ...

A devastating fire. A hospital full of immobile helpless patients. A power shifting conspiracy. Can Shreeja and Shiuli get to the bottom of the corruption of power? A fire broke out in a superspecialty hospital in the city. The patients were asphyxiated, choked to death by the fumes while waiting to go home just the morning after. The event brought trauma and despair to the lives of the city. Shreeja started digging what caused the fire and why the rescue operations were insufficient. Shiuli followed the system and hit a wall so big that she doubted if she would ever be able to dig a hole ...

When Newport's most sought after investment adviser meets her death while cruising on a sail boat surrounded by several of her biggest clients, amateur sleuth Caroline Kent finds herself in the middle of another murder investigation. Newport police detective Lt. Hank Nightingale is sure he knows who murdered Althea Tanner, but Caroline is certain that the police detective is mistaken. It is up to Caroline to solve the mystery. The story is one of greed and betrayal in the city best known for its gilt and glamour and offers a tale of financial intrigue straight from today's news headlines.

Publish AND Perish? A revered environmental author is worth more dead than alive! WHEN HE AGREED TO GIVE AWAY THE BRIDE ON BALD HEAD ISLAND, A PRIVATE EYE DIDN'T COUNT ON BECOMING SHARK BAIT! A "destination" wedding on a charming island off the coast of North Carolina turns deadly! Taking a break from the festivities, Alton Rhode and his lady love, the beautiful Alice Watts, meet the island’s most-famous resident: the reclusive author, Ashleigh Harper, whose classic environmental novel inspired a generation of America’s youth. But all is not what it seems, and Rhode is soon involved in ...

IT WAS A SIMPLE INSURANCE INVESTIGATION -- UNTIL THE LIES AND BODIES STARTED PILING UP! Alton Rhode starts out in a Northern nursing home and winds up in a Southern town, where a military academy may be more soiled than local Civil War statues covered in bird droppings. He uncovers a twisty financial conspiracy involving radioactive isotopes, sex, and murder. "ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES ARE IN A CLASS BY THEMSELVES.” (John Crudele, New York Post); “A LAWRENCE DE MARIA TITLE GIVES YOU MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK THAN JUST ABOUT ANYTHING IN THE BOOK MARKETPLACE TODAY.” (Florida Weekly); “A ...

Looking into the "suicide" of his lover's ex-husband sounds like a hairball to a private investigator. But he never imagined it could get him killed! Alton Rhode travels to San Francisco to investigate an alleged suicide and winds up ensnared in a web of cryptocurrency-fueled murder and international intrigue! The private eye knows a lot about murder and almost nothing about bitcoins. But he soon gets educated about the latter with the help of an unorthodox but brilliant young woman. And his own expertise comes in very handy when he runs into a bunch of Russians and Chinese whose motives ...

A mysterious bombing assassination. A city holding its breath. And a colossal blackmail scheme that must be stopped… at any cost. FBI Special Agent Heather Chase is tasked to solve a bombing murder case but soon realizes the mysterious bomber has technology far superior to the FBI’s own. No trace of explosives. No surveillance footage. Zero witness. Chase smacks into a brick wall everywhere she turns… Little does she know this is just the tip of an iceberg. The investigation quickly turns into an increasingly wild goose chase of false leads and cryptic clues in search of the shadowy ...

She has one flight to stop a fake-money operation…laundering millions in the sky. A criminal running a flying art gallery. A luxury jet used to launder counterfeit cash. And one U.S. Secret Service agent with just hours to break the case wide open. Elaine Brogan knows exactly what’s at stake when she boards a luxurious private jet, undercover as a flight attendant. Hidden inside high-end painting crates aren’t just forged Picassos and Monets—they’re are stuffed with near-perfect counterfeit $100 bills. Bills so real, electronic scanners at banks can't tell the difference. The jet ...