Crash / David Hagberg and Lawrence Light.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The second Great Depression is coming. The world's economies are groaning under too much debt. If one thing goes wrong, the entire rickety system collapses.

Now, acclaimed award-winning New York Times bestselling novelist David Hagberg and renowned financial reporter Lawrence Light have combined forces to dramatize--hour by hour--how this all-too-real catastrophe could go down in Crash .

With debt-burdened governments and businesses worldwide about to go bust, a cabal of Wall Street big shots plot to destroy the globe's stock exchanges. To provide that one thing that goes wrong. In 24 hours, a powerful computer worm will smash the exchanges and spark an international panic, pushing a debt-laden world into the abyss. The Wall Street gang's investment bank will be the last one standing, able to make a killing amid the ruins.

But one person, who works for their bank as a computer expert, spots the worm embedded deep in its network. Cassy Levin invents a program to destroy the cyber-intruder. Angered by Cassy's discovery, her bosses order her kidnapping.

Her boyfriend, a former Navy SEAL, is alarmed at Cassy's disappearance and unravels the plot. Ben Whalen only has until the next morning to save the woman he loves and prevent the economic apocalypse.

This story is based on the genuine threat posed by towering debt, which will make the 2008 financial crisis look puny.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

This financial thriller from bestseller Hagberg (the Kirk McGarvey series) and financial journalist Light, a sometimes uneasy mix of Wall Street business and hard core action, presents a frightening doomsday scenario. Cassy Levin works in cybersecurity at the Manhattan headquarters of Burnham Pike, the nation's premier investment bank, and has discovered a computer worm that she believes will destroy BP's system and then spread to trading floors worldwide. Meanwhile, top executives at BP, who introduced the worm, and Spencer Nast, the American president's White House chief adviser on economic affairs, are plotting to crash the world economy, starting with the New York Stock Exchange, in order to enrich themselves. Cassy, who can't get anyone at BP to listen to her, confides in her fiancé, former Navy SEAL Ben Whalen, shortly before the bad guys kidnap her. Ben's efforts to rescue Cassy ratchet up the suspense. Readers should be prepared for some mini-economics lessons, including an afterword on the "debt bomb" by Light. The novel's awkward structure undercuts its sobering message. Agent: Susan Gleason, Susan Gleason Literary. (Apr.)

Booklist Review

The folks who gave you the Great Recession, when people prospering one day were eating cat food the next, are still beavering away, according to this oddly structured thriller. "Oddly structured" because the heroes are introduced in the opening pages--cybersecurity pro Cassy Levin, whose integrity has been a career drawback, and her lover, former Navy SEAL Ben Whalen. Then they all but disappear as the authors take us inside the fictional Burnham Pike, "the nation's premier investment bank," and make us endure yards of tedious disquisitions on the financial markets. It's clear that Burnham execs have come up with a global scam to short sell stock, deflate its value, then clean up on the ruins. Cassy catches on, and her attempts to thwart the scheme--followed by their attempts to kill her--turn the last half of the novel into a grade-A thriller. Hagberg has had spooky success as a prophet, writing about the felling of the Twin Towers and the killing of Osama bin Laden before they happened. If you own stocks, hunker down.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

David Hagberg was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota. After graduating from high school, he joined the Air Force and was trained as a cryptographer. During his career, he was stationed in Greenland and in Germany. He studied physics, mathematics and philosophy at the University of Maryland, Overseas Division and the University of Wisconsin. He worked as a cub reporter on the Duluth Herald and News-Tribune and as a news desk editor for the Associated Press. His first novel, Twister, was published in 1975. He has written over 70 suspense novels including The White House, Joshua's Hammer, Desert Fire, and High Flight. He won three Mystery Scene Magazine Best American Mystery awards for Countdown, Crossfire, and Critical Mass. His Sean Flannery novel, The Kremlin Letter, was also nominated for an American Book Award.

David Hagberg passed away on September 8, 2019 at the age of 76.

(Bowker Author Biography)