An interesting, well written novel and also a warning about the possibility of major world wide financial crisis due to the outrageous amounts of debt currently held by nations, companies and individuals.
A group of wall street executives has entered into a plot to wrack havoc in world wide financial markets by the introduction of a worm into companies' web sites which will destroy the exchanges and cause panic around the world. Their idea will allow one huge company to escape the devastation of the worm and rake in fortunes buying at the depressed prices which will become available and than selling at huge premiums over purchase price. Everything seems to be moving towards the fiscal Armageddon planned when one brilliant analyst working for that company comes up with an apparent fix for the worm. Her position is of course, to advise management and expect that they will jump at the chance to prevent catastrophe. Unfortunately for Cassy Levin, the analyst finding the fix, it is the management that she advises that is setting up the project and to protect themselves order her kidnapping and killing.
But there is an unknown ace in Cassy's hand. Her fiancee is an ex Navy Seal with the fighting skills that this group has. In looking for his love he finds that she has been kidnapped and employs all methods to find her and rescue her. The story by itself is engrossing with action aplenty and there are lessons in quite a bit of the high finance that is necessary to do what is being planned. As already stated the authors do make a strong case for a reexamination of the financial freedom that is too easily available. Events occurring in 2008 in the U.S. are brought up in which banks and financial institutions had to be bailed out by the government due to them being overextended. The over reaching by these financial institutions is blamed on the attitude of the Federal Reserve bank itself which in setting re discount rates for banks regulates the amount of loans that can be granted. The loose policies allowed loans freely granted to people and companies that by any analysis could not afford to service them laying the groundwork for a probable financial collapse only forestalled by government bailout.