CHASING MONEY
by Michael Balter
Most investor pitch meetings don’t end in murder - but then Marty and Bo haven’t had a lot of luck lately. They’ve been struggling to keep their startup business alive. It’s not high-tech, it’s not highly successful and the pressure to find capital has strained their bank accounts and Marty’s marriage.
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So when Nico Scava offered to invest they eagerly accepted. He had money, connections in the art world, and a creative idea, but maybe they should have asked more questions. Now Nico’s dead and they’re on the hook for whatever scheme he was running. The Russian mob is after them, and if they don’t find $10 million and a mysterious missing painting in the next few days they’ll be dead too.
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Their frantic chase will lead them from a cabin in the Oregon woods to a Portland strip club, from an aging artist to a bogus baron, and deep into the history of a missing masterpiece that someone is willing to kill to obtain. As the bodies pile up, Marty and Bo will have some tough choices to make about how far they’ll go to protect their families, their company, and themselves.
A missing masterpiece leads to a desperate search for information.
Oregon based Marty and Bo were just trying to keep their online-retail business alive, now they have to try to keep themselves alive.
This race against time action thriller reads almost like a screenplay. Whilst there are everyman characters thrust into an extraordinary situation, there’s also a cast of memorable yet authentic extras.
The action starts immediately and doesn’t let up. The same could be said for the threat level which starts at deadly and only gets worse, especially as the man with the answers is dead.
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With settings, humour and motives that will be familar to readers of hardboiled noir, Marty and Bo find themselves in all sorts of trouble as their need for answers tests them to the limit and they struggle to keep each other, and family members, safe.
Should they involve the cops? Or might finding the valuable art or money be enough to save their necks?
You won’t fail to enjoy this entertaining debut of greed and deception, the first book in Balter's Marty and Bo series.
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About the Author
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Michael Balter is an award-winning author whose debut novel, Chasing Money, has won multiple awards, including er - The Best Indie Book Award - Crime Thrillers, and The Feathered Quill Award - Mystery, Thriller & Suspense.
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Known as a talented and witty storyteller, Michael Balter has captivated audiences for years with tales of his extraordinary life as a German emigrant, a Vietnam War veteran, a Silicon Valley pioneer, and a serial entrepreneur. One of his business partners was once kidnapped by a Russian mobster, which inspired a portion of the plot of Chasing Money.
Michael lived in Oregon for 29 years and now makes his home in Charlevoix, Michigan, where he is hard at work on the sequel to Chasing Money.
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