The first novel by former Time and Forbes magazine journalist Al Butkus (’64 Journ) focuses on a lead character who embraces danger but is in the midst of a career change.
Cable Wheeler is a former Wall Street accountant and Coast Guard rescue swimmer now embroiled in a patent battle that ended in murder.
First, a chemist mysteriously drowns in an Iowa resort lake. Months later, his lawyer’s daughter is shot in a Kansas City hotel. These could be coincidences — or not.
It’s all part of a power play, a race to acquire a certain formula that will yield the biggest fortune in the coming years. The chemist’s secret is the prize, and greedy money men and a powerful politician both want it.
Despite his inexperience, Wheeler proves worthy time and time again in this bloody business.
He is just trying to do the right thing, but it could get him killed.
First-time novelist Butkus is an adjunct communications professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.