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A complete German version (human translation) is available to a publisher wishing to secure worldwide rights in German.

"...a powerful, fast-paced story of financial games, deception, and questionable definitions of love." D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review

Anulka Lorenzini is Head of Wealth Management at Bankhaus Finsler, a private bank in Zurich. Her clients represent, in part, a world of hidden, ill-gotten money. Her secret contempt for this dark side of the banking business is stronger than her attempts to remain outwardly who she is: a respected banker.

She falls in love with Giovanni Poggio who convinces her to facilitate the embezzlement of 14.5 million euros from her bank. His plan: a fake customer regularly withdraws cash from a real customer's account. Sixty percent of it goes to her.

When she realizes later how fragile her decision was, she stops. Although 13.3 million euros have already been withdrawn, her Italian partners want her remaining share.

To end her nightmare, Anulka decides to initiate a second round of embezzlement. However, the success of this depends on involving Felix Hofmaier, a Frankfurt management consultant, who may face criminal charges — and financial ruin — for defrauding the bank of one of his clients.

Anulka proposes a schedule for the outstanding payments to her Italian partners. In return, they increase their demands once again and threaten to kill her if she does not agree. Outraged by their callousness and greed, she gives free rein to her dark side and plunges into a deadly dance of betrayal, deceit, murder, and retribution.

Publication Date: April 16, 2024

Formats: paperback and eBook

Reviews

D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review:

Bankhaus Finsler is a private bank in Zurich where Anulka Lorenzini heads the Wealth Management Division. Here, clients with often-ill-gotten wealth harbor special interests she is assigned to cater to—with strategies and procedures that challenge her personal vision of being an upstanding banker.

She's already in a no-win situation when she falls in love with Giovanni Poggio, who convinces her that embezzlement would satisfy her intense hatred of the dark underbelly of the banking business. His ambitions and suggestions land her in even more trouble when her new choices lead to her lover's death and problems that make her prior difficulties seem minute in comparison.

As Anulka faces champion player Ben, who observes she is a woman "with many veils wrapped around her," the cat-and-mouse game between respectability and criminal activity blurs in the face of love and special interests every bit as savvy and dangerous as Anulka, leading her deeper into a world she had only skirted the edges of before.

Neil Giarratana creates a fine interplay between financial and emotional quandaries, widening his net with a cast of characters who each influence Anulka's perspective and ideal of ambition and success.

As chapters unfold hidden schemes, and weapons both physical and mental emerge, Anulka finds herself in flight from all she has become, which seems to lead to an inevitable conclusion she never saw coming, but now faces all too clearly.

Giarratana's dance between deceit and truth moves between financial and personal relationships in a manner reminiscent of a thriller, but with the added value of emotional entanglements that constantly challenge and change outcomes. Each pull the protagonist deeper into a quicksand of moral and ethical dilemmas she is less and less able to escape.

The result is an action-packed novel replete with satisfyingly unpredictable twists and turns in a story that moves from high-echelon financial games that whirl through Europe and the Middle East to the "red flags and hurricane strength winds" that threaten financial and emotional meltdowns.

True wealth often lies in the eye of the beholder. The true wealth of Bankhaus lies in its astute ability to navigate treachery, subterfuge, and banking inner sanctums to reveal a plot well entrenched in real-world wealth management and the fictional world of a character who becomes caught up in it.

Libraries seeking solid thrillers that promise and deliver a powerful, fast-paced story of financial games, deception, and questionable definitions of love (whether of money or people) will find Bankhaus a winner.

**

AI-generated summary of the the text of customer reviews on Amazon:

Customers find the story interesting, surprising, and complex. They also appreciate the well-developed characters that lead the reader through a world of high finance.

Author Biography

NEIL GIARRATANA is the author of CEO Priorities, an influential contribution to the art of successfully managing and leading international-based operating companies. CEO Priorities continues to be sold twelve years after its publication around the world.
Neil is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in International Relations. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School. Fluent in German and French, he spent the major part of his business career in Europe managing both American subsidiaries as well as stand-alone European companies.

The crime thriller BANKHAUS is the author’s first novel, spanning multiple European and Middle Eastern financial capitals.

Copyright Information

BankHaus
Copyright © 2024 by Neil Giarratana
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright
Conventions. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, except
for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or
hereinafter invented, without written permission of the publisher.