Art Chester

Death by Arbitrage or Live Low Die High Art Chester

Publisher Marketing: The scene: a research laboratory in west Los Angeles overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The dates: June through December 2019. Insider trading - white-collar crime. It's harmless to everyone except a few investors. Or is it? Consider a hedge fund that disrupts emergency calls, making profitable trades while people lie dying. In Death By Arbitrage or Live Low Die High, computer scientist Evan Olsson survives a hotel fire and thinks his problems are over. But his predictable work life is upended when his FBI customer pushes him to second-guess the SEC's pursuit of stock market manipulators. Evan finds a company, Raptor Holdings, whose financial transactions are just too perfect to be legal. The hotel fire and a fatal plane crash reveal that Raptor has an inside track on the emergency response system, ready to murder to fatten its profits. Evan's pursuit of the criminals is disrupted when an old adversary kidnaps and tries to kill him. With evidence to justify a surveillance order, Evan's body and brain are wired to the Ghost, a high-tech eavesdropping robot. Evan steers the Ghost into Raptor's inner office to unravel their illegal trading operation. An airtight case is almost in hand, but the surveillance device's battery is losing power. Evan pilots the robot to restore its charge but is attacked by a watchdog, causing Evan to black out in pain. A parallel plot follows Evan's romantic life. Evan loves Lissa, an artist and professional toy designer, but is also having an affair with Lissa's older sister Holly. Holly and her husband both work at Evan's lab and Holly becomes increasingly aggressive when Evan tries to break off the relationship. Evan is convinced that an explosion is imminent as the two women collide. Evan hopes to resolve this triangle by building his romance with Lissa, which may encourage Holly to pursue other interests. Unfortunately, Evan and Lissa walk into a deadly trap and have only minutes to find their way out. Contributor Bio:  Chester, Art URNO BARTHEL is the pen name of Art Chester, a technologist and mystery writer. This book continues the story of Evan Olsson that was begun in Death By Probability. Art hosts a website that reports work in science that affects our everyday lives: http: //artchester.net Art's fiction is set in and around Malibu, California, his home for many years. He now lives in Michigan, New York state and Hawaii.