A TOY TO KILL FORCelebrated criminal lawyer Marc Kadella takes on the fall-out of a class action suit against a beloved corporate toy company gone wrong—and ends up falling down a rabbit hole of insider trading, sex scandal, political corruption, and murder, in the eighth page-turner of the Marc Kadella legal mystery series. Like most investors, venture capitalist Cal Simpson has his fingers in … capitalist Cal Simpson has his fingers in many a financial pie. There’s cutting edge war plane procurement, state-of-the-art toy manufacturing, and the occasional affair with the right politician (to name a few). Some call him a shady Wall Street kinda guy. Others know him to be a tyrant—a mastermind with puppets intricately connected by a billion dollar string.
One of his pet projects is the newest Cannon Brothers toy—a motorized skateboard for kids as young as 10 that takes the marketplace by storm, until it blows up—literally. Seems its Chinese manufacturer has installed lithium batteries that overheat the braking system, sometimes causing it to explode—leaving 24 kids dead and 500 injured. But the bigger problem is just as sinister: the small pool of people with insider knowledge of the defect are beginning to disappear…
First there’s Irving Haraldson, a company engineer who discovered the defect before release and brought it to management with a furrowed brow. He was told every single battery would be replaced, release date be damned. And then he was discovered behind a Minneapolis pick-up bar with 3 bullets in his head.
Then there’s the capable albeit young corporate lawyer Lynn McDaniel, who was assigned to defend Cannon Brothers in litigation. After discovering the engineer’s memo and distributing it to her boss, Zach Evans, she turns up dead in the woods en route to a 4th of July party being thrown by Zach’s father-in-law: Cal Simpson.
Zach finds himself on trial for murder, with inimitable criminal lawyer Marc Kadella in his corner—and a nagging suspicion Cal knows more than he’s let on.
A bleak and accurate portrayal of the lewd world of financial crime, where not even children are protected from the greedy and power-hungry, Insider Justice is Dennis Carstens’s most intricate murder mystery yet—a heart-racing financial thriller that reads like a delicate puzzle, and a plot that twists and turns with meticulous precision—right up to its astounding conclusion.
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Have read several in the series. Always enjoy. Great characters, great story lines.
Insider trading has always been a criminal proposition, no matter how vague its definition. Most of us have no idea how inside knowledge of any company can lead to stock trading that’s unfair. In this book, we have powerful people manipulating companies for financial gain. That gain is so important that they commit murder for it. The consequences come due many years later. Just as in a previous book (Political Justice), many of the perpetrators are involved in government. The question is actually asked; if a man or woman is an average person when elected to office, how come that person leaves office after becoming a millionaire on a public salary? This is one explanation. Our cast of characters are the same as in previous books with some new ones thrown in. Our usual folks are growing and changing just like we all do in real life. They suffer from accidents and malice just as we do and they also learn from their mistakes. I enjoyed my outing in this book, and I think you will too.
I love anything by Carstens–Have read them all!!!
!Am hookedFirst book I’ve read by this author!
Dennis Carstens remains one of my favorite authors. I especially enjoy the uses of real locations in St. Paul/Minneapolis, as well as other cities. It makes the reading much more believable.
I love his books.
OH Yes – this is a good one 5 stars. I really recommend it – well written I loved the characters and the interaction between them – clever writing and down to earth…it was hard to put down and spent a late night reading it……want to read more like this.
Celeste Robertson
Good characters well written
Here’s my problem with this author: he writes an interesting story, but in the beginning he throws so many characters at the reader that you need a spread sheet to keep track of them. If you have read him before it helps because you know Marc’s “inner circle.” I always feel like the first third of the book is it’s own mystery, then it gets interesting.
I had a hard time getting into this book, so it remains unfinished. Maybe I will go back and try again.
This wasn’t as good as the other Kadella books. I thought it was boring. There was one courtroom scene toward the end of the book, and that was great, but the rest of the book was sort of blah. Insider trading just isn’t interesting.
This book had more twists & plot turns than any book I have read in the past year.
Extremely interesting and well written!
Love these books
Kept you guessing
Good read. Full of twists and turns yet realistic.
A legal thriller worthy of Grisham or Turow! A well thought-out plot with many moving pieces. Definitely interested in reading others by this author!
This book is so poorly written that I was unable to read it. The author’s style takes me back to about 3rd grade, when sentences were simple and subjects repeated again and again to be sure no one would lose track.
Great read on a snowy day!
Have read a number of his books and have enjoyed them all. The characters are well developed and story is always entertaining with twists and turns and you don’t always anticipate!
very good book page turner