The Consultant [Paperback]

Alec Donzi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2000

The Consultant is a shocking, fast-paced suspense thriller. A flamboyant corporate consultant is enticed by a young and beautiful CEO to participate in a high-risk business deal. Soon things go terribly wrong as the consultant unravels a subtle scheme of international nuclear terrorism. He finds himself trapped. Now he's the target. The race takes him from his lavish mansion in Naples, Florida, to a secret nuclear facility in North Korea around the globe inside mysterious places in Europe and behind hushed doors in Washington. The consultant not only encounters the seductive female CEO, but also a series of strange murders, a renegade CIA agent and a deadly ex-Navy SEAL operative. Billions of dollars have vanished and a time bomb is ticking as the survival of mankind is uncertain.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I read it with great interest. -- S. Mehta, Alfred Knopf

The Consultant is an engaging story. -- S. Ross, Crown & Crown

Very exciting and compelling. Donzi’s thriller is certainly action-packed! -- G. K. Hendricks, Pocket Books

From the Publisher

The Consultant is the blow-away megathriller for the new millennium. Alec Donzi skillfully packs intelligence, intrigue, action and suspense into this exceptional novel. The heart-stopping story line is filled with surprising twists and turns weaving a web of intrigue as Donzi comes across as a master storyteller. The Consultant promises the reader a nerve-racking and page-turning experience.

The Consultant is the fast-paced international suspense thriller about a flamboyant corporate consultant who is eager to retire at age forty with a nest egg of a hundred million dollars. To achieve his goal, he engages in one last high-risk deal that not only jeopardizes his own life, but also endangers the future of mankind. The threat of long-range supernukes stationed in North Korea becomes a reality.

Nicanor Industries is a Dallas-based conglomerate that is involved in the construction of nuclear reactors around the world. After Nicanor’s president John Farnsworth is killed in a mysterious plane crash, his young and enchanting wife Juliet, equipped with a law degree from Yale, takes over as the new powerful CEO.

Jerome Birchner is the flamboyant corporate consultant who is hired by Juliet Farnsworth to arrange for her a peculiar golden parachute--six hundred million dollars tax free. In the process, Birchner becomes entangled in a global web of intrigue, corruption and espionage. He unravels a subtle scheme of white-collar nuclear terrorism motivated by greed.

As Birchner becomes the hunted, the chase takes him from his lavish mansion in Naples, Florida, to a secret nuclear facility in North Korea, through the offices of the dubious International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, and behind hushed doors in Washington. When he encounters renegade CIA Special Agent Trevor Gates, Birchner is trapped. At first, Birchner doesn’t know that Trevor Gates has designs on Juliet Farnsworth, and her fortune.

And when Birchner’s teenage children are kidnapped, he is desperate. He doesn’t know who to trust and where to turn for help. Only a radical and vengeful CIA field operative, ex-Navy SEAL Chuck Osteen, offers Birchner a glimmer of hope. But at what price? Who is pulling the strings? Billions of dollars have vanished. Is Juliet Farnsworth truly the innocent widow she portrays herself to be? Why does the CIA have a hard time tracking down the perpetrators?

It seems impossible to stop China and North Korea in their vicious attempt to take over the world. The unlikely team of Birchner and Osteen realizes that the fate of the world--and their own survival--depends on their next move. Everything is at stake, and a time bomb is ticking.

Some characters are driven by greed and passion, others by a relentless pursuit for justice. Will Birchner and his family survive? How about Juliet Farnsworth and Trevor Gates, will they live happily ever after or must they pay the ultimate price for their ambitions? With the lurking danger of long-range supernukes in the Far East, the national security of the U.S. has been compromised and the survival of mankind is uncertain.

The real danger is imminent! You'll never feel safe again! World Peace is only an illusion!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: Megagrace Inc (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887603042
• ISBN-13: 978-1887603041
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,701,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Please Hire an editor!, December 4, 2000

By 

"mooneyxxx" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Consultant (Paperback)

This book could have used a good editor and proof reader! the story is not bad, but the errors and the improper use of the english Language is Jarring! The hook and the plot line have great possibilities but I would prefer better character development. Overall, I might have given this book 3 to 4 stars if it were cleanly edited. I recently read a very good thriller by a new author: "Deviant Ways" by Chris Mooney -- Hanible Lecter Watch out!

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too hard to read, November 15, 2000

By 

"[e-mail]" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Consultant (Paperback)

Kind of a fun story kept me going to the halfway mark. But the syntax and grammar are so awkward and stilted that I gave it up. This book needs a major proofreading and rewrite to make it fluent and readable.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yes, PLEASE hire an editor!, December 20, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Consultant (Paperback)

MoneyXXX is absolutely correct, the fractured syntax and grammar errors are VERY distracting and jarring. Some aspects of the story are refreshing: the protagonist has a loving relationship with his wife and parents. When is the last time you saw that in a novel? However, the characters all speak in the same "voice", that is, they all use the same slang and the same sentence structures. Dick Francis is a good example of an author who distinguishes his characters with dialog. There are lot of glaring grammatical errors. There are also several minor plot errors: eg, a character showing up in a different place than he was minutes before. This book really needs polishing before it's ready for the general public, but I think this guy has a future as a writer. This book's plot was a refreshing change of pace.