Casino Excelsior

Oliver Steele is a young British accountant in Los Angeles, struggling to work his way out of bankruptcy. He does odd jobs for Carlton Tisch, a crusty New York businessman. He is sent to find the killer of Ara Kalestian, an Armenian casino owner who had been managing two million dollars of Carlton''s money. The search takes him to Fresno to meet the man''s widow, Las Vegas where he meets his colleagues and his mistress, and to London and Monte Carlo where he tangles with other suspects. He discovers a deadly gambling game being played by Tisch and his fellow investors. He also gets caught up in an Al Qaeda plot to steal the money and narrowly escapes death, first in Los Angeles and then in the maze of tunnels beneath Harrods. Things climax on St. Lydia, a Caribbean tax haven where good and bad guys jockey for control of the funds. For Oliver, relations with his autocratic boss are complicated by the free-spirited Kathy, a friend of Carlton''s young wife, whose intuition sometimes trumps his own more logical approach. See more