From Publishers Weekly
Corporate financier Frey's debut novel concerns a secret society of powerful businessmen who attempt to engineer a large-scale economic disaster to topple the President. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The unlikely hero of this first novel, an investment banker with (gasp!) a conscience, risks all in probing a crooked takeover scheme. Plans for a motion picture from Paramount are underway.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

ANNOTATION

A hotshot investment banker is about to organize the largest corporate takeover the world has ever seen in this New York Times bestseller. But there's more than meets the eye to this megadeal, and he soon finds himself caught in a web of political intrigue and murder--a web spun by a powerful secret society who will stop at nothing to change the course of history. Soon to be a major motion picture from Paramount.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Andrew Falcon believes he has the stuff to make it to the top of this world, to become one of the masters of the game. He has staked his whole future on the biggest hostile takeover in Wall Street history, one that will net him a fee of $5 million - if he can pull it off fast. But there is more to this monster deal than shows up on any computer printout. At a strip mall in Michigan, a small-time hit man takes out his final mark - and finds himself a target. In Montana, the chairman of the Federal Reserve drowns in the Bighorn River. Off St. Croix, an investment analyst is fed alive to the sharks. As these and other hints of savage carnage emerge, Falcon stumbles upon the secret scheme behind the takeover ... a plot so vast and brilliantly designed as to stagger the imagination ... so intricate as to mock all efforts to stop it or trace its source. Falcon discovers the power and terror of the Sevens. The Sevens ... the members of this shadowy Ivy League organization have the wealth and will to do whatever they wish, be it provoking panic in the markets or sabotaging a Presidential administration. Falcon now realizes that he is not just a player in a hot deal but a pawn in a high-stakes game of greed, corruption, and perhaps something even more sinister. Because he has learned enough to bring everything to a halt, he is marked for destruction. Andrew Falcon's struggle for survival begins as he tries to outwit his betrayers - and a hidden enemy whose hatred is implacable.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Investment banking becomes a weapon of insurrection in this face-paced debut thriller. Menaced by the spread-the-wealth policies of a popular, liberal U.S. president (particularly his proposed 90% inheritance tax), The Sevens, a secret society of powerful Harvard alumni, unleashes a convoluted scheme to topple him from power, even at the risk of undermining the international financial system. E. Granville Winthrop IV, chairman of Wall Street's top investment banking firm, masterminds the conspiracy, undeterred by its several necessary murders-including that of the chairman of the Federal Reserve. But Winthrop makes the mistake of weaving his longtime vendetta against former protg Andrew Falcon into the plot. Now desperate and broke, Falcon jumps at the chance to orchestrate the corporate takeover at the heart of the conspiracy-and by the time he figures out what's going on, it may be too late. Frey's plotting requires leaps of faith, and his characters are cartoonish, but there is much here of what thriller readers enjoy: enormous wealth, murder, dirty tricks, political intrigue, colorful villains and relentless pacing. 200,000 first printing; $200,000 ad/promo; movie rights to Paramount; BOMC alternate. (Aug.)

Library Journal