Hostile Target

Stuart Wilson thinks he?s seen it all in the high-stakes world of corporate mergers and acquisitions. As general counsel for a notorious Phoenix, Arizona-based corporate raider, he has more money than he can spend and after a nasty but successful hostile takeover of a large industrial company things are just about as good as they get for him, professionally. Of course, his personal life is a mess, but his job doesn?t leave him time for that anyway. All of this begins to change when Wilson?s employer chooses a financial holding company based in Geneva, Switzerland as its next target. The target turns out to be a front for a vicious, politically influential international criminal cartel, and the unsolicited bid and the scrutiny it could attract if rejected threaten to expose its operations. Its chairman moves quickly to crush the would-be acquirers, sparing none of the vast resources and influence at his disposal to defeat the threat, trusting that the connection to his enterprise will be forgotten in the spectacular diversion of the American company?s collapse. Stuart finds himself engulfed in the resulting firestorm of regulatory and media pressure, fighting a bewildering onslaught of accusations, the focus of a deadly new game he does not comprehend. His fight to save himself and his way of life takes him across the United States and to Switzerland, where he must defeat his enemies on their own terms and turf. Liz Rice, a beautiful young attorney, believes in Stuart and together they learn that real happiness doesn?t necessarily come from the things we count as most precious.