Stealth Empire

Author Rick Caras takes the reader inside the world of international finance in his breakout novel STEALTH EMPIRE. It is a masterfully written, fast paced, international story of corporate intrigue that hooks the reader from the first page until the last. At the turn of the second Millennium, the global financial system successfully reacts to one crisis after another, with drastic changes occurring in the United States, Europe, China and the other developed nations. Except, Japan. The new financial systems in Europe and the US provide stability when Japan s banking system capitulates, and virtually declares itself insolvent-bankrupt-putting the world on the brink of an economic disaster. In the US, a new Cabinet level agency, the Department of Finance (DOF), provides the necessary leadership in the crisis-often dealing with replicated departments in other nations. Unknown to all but a few, there is a covert area, DF4, within the DOF, that becomes the nations watchdog for financial markets, and a bit more. DF4 operatives Marki Wilson and Cam Paegen find themselves in the middle of more than a Japanese financial restructuring. The death of a Japanese minister by the same pistol used for a similar assassination decades before. The accidental crash of an influential US Senator s private plane, killing all aboard. Suddenly there are linked deaths on three continents-Europe, North America and Asia. And Cam and Marki become the next targets. Paralleling the evolution of the new government agencies in the US and elsewhere is another sophisticated entity, operating without regard for the laws of any nation. A secret group started within a visible, but privately held company, and spread to many powerful public financial institutions. Over two decades, an invisible organization is put in place that blankets the globe, and has unseen ownership and influence in the global financial system. A Stealth Empire so sophisticated that, when discovered, is capable of protecting itself, by running its entire organization while all its systems go into Hibernation. This Stealth Empire is masterminded by two ex Wall Street superstars, Arthur Masti and John Bauman, who set up an international financial consulting firm, FINCONCO, that is at the core of the empire. Along with Arthur s half brother, Richard, an ex CIA agent turned bad, they take the worlds of finance, technology and wine to the reader s eye, through intrigue, deception, murder and true power brokering. What looks to be the right decision often is the most dangerous, as the government battles genius and ruthlessness, in a fast paced thriller with prognostication and reality that could only come from a master story teller with twenty five years of experience in the financial world.