Piercing the Great Wall of Corporate China
Piercing the Great Wall of Corporate China

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2016-06-07

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 1491794615

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China has historically cut itself off from interaction with the global business community for all but the last thirty-eight years. During this isolation, Chinese society and businesses developed their own morality, ethics, cultural leanings, and business practices. Philosophically, culturally, and business-wise Chinese companies operate on a different plane than businesses in other areas of the world. As a result, the methodology of performing forensic due diligence in China can vary widely from that performed in other countries. Forensic due diligence in China is challenging and requires a comprehensive knowledge of the countrys complex accounting, legal, and business issues. Alan Refkin and David Dodge will provide you with the tools necessary to delve deep into the business and financial fabric of corporate China, allowing readers to pierce the wall of secrecy surrounding Chinese businesses.

The Payback
The Payback

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2020-06-07

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1663201811

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In this latest Matt Moretti-Han Li thriller the clandestine unit known as Nemesis, a joint Chinese-American off-the-books organization, is faced with its first challenge just minutes after it’s activated by the presidents of the United States and China. Their first assignment is to find and retrieve two aging Soviet nuclear weapons that were smuggled into China to destroy its major cities and are on a countdown to detonation. They soon learn that the face behind this act of terror is Awalmir Afridi, the former leader of the Protectors of Islam, who the world believed to be dead following a US and China cruise missile attack that decimated his strongholds. Helping Afridi is a wealthy Saudi businessman and member of the royal family. When the Saudi government discovers what’s happening, they fear the retribution that would follow. Lacking the resources to retrieve the weapons on their own, they inform the Russian and Chinese governments separately that they’ve uncovered a terrorist plot to smuggle former Soviet nuclear devices into China. Because China is economically critical to Russia, Putin is determined to retrieve the weapons and deny that former Soviet nuclear devices were ever held by terrorists. To accomplish this, he sends a war-hardened colonel, Vasily Kvachkov, to do whatever it takes to get them back from fanatics who’d rather die than surrender them. The problem is, he no idea where they are. As Kvachkov and his men covertly enter China, President Liu of China turns to Nemesis to retrieve the nuclear devices, thereby unknowingly placing them on a collision course with a Russian colonel who has a reputation for never coming in second.

The Cabal
The Cabal

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2022-09-13

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1663245274

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The Cabal has secretly expanded its grip on world economies, governments, corporations, and other centers of influence for decades. Founded by a mysterious person known as the thin man, its goal is to create a new world order—an authoritarian and borderless world under one government. With its members in strategic positions within global technology and social media companies, senior government positions, and enormous investment funds, they’ve pushed its narrative to billions of users until their beliefs have become mainstream. Those within the Cabal don’t want to change the world for altruistic or egalitarian reasons. Instead, they want to establish perpetual global monopolies that would ensure extreme generational wealth while advocating that centralized government control creates greater economic stability, ratchets down global tensions, and establishes a society of equals. Standing in the way of this seemingly unstoppable juggernaut is Nemesis, an ultra-secret off-the-books organization that doesn’t follow a rulebook. In this latest Matt Moretti-Han Li thriller, when the Cabal discovers Nemesis is after them, it uses its considerable global influence and piles of cash to frame them as terrorists. Hunted by several governments, including their own, and with time running out, they must stop the Cabal before it initiates a world-unifying event that will forge its global consolidation of power and create a new world order.

The Collector
The Collector

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2023-07-23

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 1663254419

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For only the fourth time in two centuries, the French have allowed the Mona Lisa to leave the Louvre, this time at the request of the pope, who wants to exhibit it in the Vatican Museums. However, once on display, the Museums’ former curator notices a nearly imperceptible discrepancy in the painting, leading to the discovery that it’s a forgery. Faced with the crisis of losing the most valuable painting in the world, the pope turns to Mauro Bruno and his associates, who’d previously performed discrete investigations for the Vatican. As they begin, Bruno and his colleagues try to understand how the world’s most famous painting, which is kept inside an alarmed environmental enclosure fifteen feet from the nearest person and under constant visual and physical surveillance, could be stolen. Even in transit to the Vatican, it was under continual visual monitoring with a security team inches from the masterpiece’s enclosure, leaving the investigators bewildered about how a theft could have occurred. However, they soon learn that the Mona Lisa is one of many heavily guarded museum masterpieces that have been stolen and replaced with a forgery, the thefts having gone unreported. With only two weeks before the Mona Lisa returns to France, and not having a clue as to the identity of the mysterious person they call the Collector, they must find and retrieve the Mona Lisa.

The Forgotten
The Forgotten

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2021-04-08

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1663220972

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A young girl escapes her kidnappers; the US embassy compound in Athens comes under a devastating missile attack; a US Navy amphibious carrier, returning from a goodwill tour, engages hostile aircraft over the Adriatic Sea; and an abandoned Soviet submarine base in Bulgaria is secretly refurbished. These are the seemingly unrelated pieces of a puzzle that Matt Moretti and Han Li encountered while on vacation. It started innocently enough when the two agents from the off the books White House organization known as Nemesis were walking back from dinner and saw a young girl being chased by three thugs. After dispensing their own brand of justice on her pursuers, and on hearing that she and others like her were kidnapped and being sold into slavery, they decide to get involved. However, they soon find that the tables have been turned and they’re being hunted by someone with seemingly limitless resources. Needing to survive long enough to take down the human traffickers, they receive help from where they least expect it.

The Scion
The Scion

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2020-04-21

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 153209910X

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Detectives Mauro Bruno and Elia Donati, surviving numerous attempts on their lives while bringing Duke Rodolfo Rizzo to justice, decide to take a vacation in Paris to celebrate and relax. However, not long after they arrive Donati is cleverly framed for a murder he didn’t commit, but which he finds impossible to refute since the killing was captured on the hotel’s camera security system. With Donati in jail, Bruno tries to discover why he’s been framed and who’s behind it. Helping him is a French investigator, Lisette Donais. Together they uncover a web of deceit that involves a Saudi official, the French mafia, a recluse in the wealthiest residential area of Paris, and a suicide in Milan. Not long after, Bruno is also framed for murder. On the run, he and Donais discover that the key to vindication is in their past.

The Frame
The Frame

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2021-09-13

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 1663228787

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An Italian shipbuilding magnate and a prostitute are found dead beside each other in the bedroom of a luxurious mansion at a famous resort in Bali. A hidden security camera shows the only other person to enter that room was the victim’s ex-wife, the resort manager. When the police discover she volunteered to help room service at the last minute and delivered the food, which the autopsy confirmed contained the poison which killed them, she moves to the top of the suspect list. As if to put a cherry on their case, the police find a bottle of that poison in her purse. Turning to the only person she believes can help, the accused murderess asks Gunter Wayan, a disgraced former police detective turned private investigator, to take the case. Believing it to be a waste of time, given the pile of evidence against her, he grudgingly accepts. However, as he delves further into the evidence, he finds that perception is not reality.

The Archivist
The Archivist

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2018-05-23

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1532047150

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General Lin Bogang, Chinas highest-ranking military officer, has a plan that will force the government into naming him his countrys leader. And theres a strong likelihood hell succeed, thanks to secret documents written by Mao Zedong. The general has two problems. He only has copies, which could be discounted as forgeries, and he doesnt know the exact location of the originals. Soon he discovers that the key to finding them lies with Matt Moretti, an alcoholic former Army Ranger currently working as an archivist for the US government. Hunted by the general, a Chinese assassin, European police, and his own government, the archivist goes on the run across Europe as he tries to unravel the clues that will reveal Maos long-kept secret. Along the way he meets Han Li, a beautiful Chinese agent and assassin in her own right who is also seeking the original documents. Only time will tell, however, whether they will manage to keep them out of the hands of the general. In this thriller, an alcoholic former Army Ranger joins forces with Chinas top assassin to recover secret documents that could topple the Chinese government.

The Abductions
The Abductions

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1532047630

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Following a gala, the presidents of the United States and China disappear after retiring for the night within their heavily guarded palaces inside the Forbidden City. After an intense investigation ensues, no one can determine how the dignitaries were abducted while under constant surveillance. When an internet video is released that shows the heads of state kneeling before the flag of the Protectors of Islam, the question of who abducted them and what they want is answered. The Islamic terrorists threaten that unless their demands are met within seventy-two hours, both men will be beheaded live on the internet. With each countrys intelligence agencies paralyzed by a lack of clues, Matt Moretti and his Chinese agent counterpart, Han Li, work outside their organizations bureaucracies to find the leaders. After they uncover a conspiracy focused on attaining a singular objective at any cost, Moretti and Li are arrested for interfering with the investigation. Now they must outrun the army, make sense of complex clues, and race to find the presidents before their abductors carry out their evil plan. In this thrilling story of intrigue and murder, an American civilian intelligence officer and Chinese agent must do everything in their power to stop the beheading of two international leaders by Islamic terrorists.

The Organization
The Organization

Author: Alan Refkin

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2021-06-07

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1663223149

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A military drone attacks a small boat off Bali and leaves a disgraced former police detective turned private investigator adrift in the Indian Ocean; an Indonesian attorney is tortured and killed delivering his client’s documents; the head of North Korea’s money-laundering clearinghouse is murdered when his car is forced off a mountain road; a Chinese army lieutenant colonel appears to die of a heart attack while on a flight to Beijing; and a server is taken from what is believed to be an impregnable office on the 101st floor of a building. These are the events that Gunter Wayan and his assistant Eka Endah must piece together if they are to stay alive and solve the mystery handed to them by a client who was on the receiving end of a sniper’s bullet moments after they were hired. Now, whoever killed their client is after them. But Wayan and Eka have no intention of going down without a fight and decide to take the battle to their pursuer. Bodies soon pile up in Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and North Korea. As the forces that are after them close in, Wayan encounters an unlikely person who can provide the information necessary to bring down The Organization, the international money-laundering enterprise which they discover is after them. The only problem with convincing this person to help is that she just tried to kill them.