The new novel, The Deceit of Riches, by V.M. Karren and Fly-by-Night Press, is available on amazon.com in Kindle- and paperback.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 anything that wasn’t bolted to the floor was up for grabs. Oil fields, banks and military hardware were targeted for hostile take overs by tens of criminal organisations out to enrich themselves and take over the reigns of the government. In Moscow the violence was endemic and the corruption deep of those fighting to gain control of the country’s resources and its future. While the government struggled to keep Russia solvent, and bread on the table, the mafia was fleecing the country and moving huge amounts of money out of Russia and hiding it abroad.
Peter Turner, an American student of history and politics, while studying the sell off of state companies and properties in the provincial city of Nizhni Novgorod, stumbles into a burgeoning local criminal network ready to make the next step up. Faced with the dilemma of exposing the deceit or staying alive, Peter must face himself and his own motivations.
Swept up in a ring international espionage swirling around him and his discovery, Peter is picked up in a sting operation by the local authorities and is given a choice that will set him against either a complex spy ring or murdering gangsters, depending on what he chooses to reveal. Peter must find a way out of Russia without getting shot, but the only way out …is to go through it.