Hard Numbers

As the stock market crashes, Attorney Leland Denton is hired to advise James McKenzie, an insurance examiner probing the possibly cooked books of a Los Angeles insurance company with suspicious assets backed by derivative investments. McKenzie is brutally murdered-the cops say by a hooker-but Denton discovers the dead man may have been involved in a conspiracy between the insurance company and a large Wall Street bank to embezzle three hundred million dollars of policyholder funds used to pay corporate bonuses and shore up the Bank's own credit default swap and derivative-laden balance sheet. The hooker could have been an assassin hired by Alejandro Silver, the president of the insurance company. Or was it John Rainier, president of the bank? On the other hand, McKenzie's young wife, who is having a lesbian affair, could have had him killed for his seven hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy. Aided by his ex-Marine paralegal, Charlotte Logan, and one-armed Tavita, a Samoan ex-wrestler, Denton must untangle the web of financial fraud and discover who was behind the murder and embezzlement. His efforts are resisted by hard-nosed business men and beautiful women who, in the face of Denton's unrelenting investigation, decide Denton must die. Thugs are hired to stalk Denton. In the meantime, his ex-wife's ex-husband, just out of prison for shooting Denton four years earlier, also tracks him. When Denton's efforts begin to pay off, all hell breaks loose, and he is forced to fight for his life against desperate killers.