Summary
CASINO CARIBBEAN is a contemporary thriller with a financial flavor, set in the offshore tax havens of the Caribbean and in London’s financial district. It describes what happens when the ruthless founder of a hugely successful internet casino is assailed simultaneously by a rival group trying to steal his business, and by the friends of a compulsive gambler he has ruined, seeking redress. It is the first in a series featuring Oliver Steele, a young investigative accountant dealing with the stigma of a recent bankruptcy. Oliver is hired by sharp financier Carlton Tisch to dig into the case of the elderly gambler. Helped and sometimes hindered by the man’s talented daughter Kathy, and by Tisch’s Israeli soldier of fortune sidekick Kon Feaver, he finds himself dodging bullets on Antigua and trying to thwart casino operator Frankie Leon and his devious attorneys. His adventures are matched by the twists and turns of high finance as Tisch mobilizes London bankers Nicco Stressman and the Honorable Quentin Teague in support. Matters reach a violent climax on the rim of a reeking volcano on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. CASINO CARIBBEAN highlights, fictionally, two areas of concern: First: the recent growth of predatory internet gambling, whereby a susceptible person with available credit on his or her credit cards can get into serious trouble, and Second: the “conflict of laws” that exists between US law and International law as enunciated by the World Trade Organization, of which the U.S.A. is a member but which has declared U.S. anti-offshore gaming laws to be discriminatory and thus themselves illegal. AUDIENCE: thriller readers in general, and those intrigued by the flow of big money though offshore banks and tax havens in particular.
About the Author
Graham Tempest was born and educated in England. After graduating from Cambridge where he edited the University newspaper, he qualified as an accountant in London and worked in accounting and investment banking before moving to the U.S.A. He traveled the world as a financial controller before settling in Los Angeles where he practiced as a CPA and served on the International Tax Committee of the California Society of CPAs. Short passages from his first two books are available on his website at grahamtempest.com.
