Accounting for Spies

Nobody makes spy movies about accountants—which is exactly the kind of oversight that gets people killed. Told in lean, wisecracking, Sam Spade–style prose, Accounting for Spies drops forensic-accounting professor Stone and his partner, Philadelphia homicide detective Sharon, into a job handed over by two ex-CIA operatives gone private. A mid-sized accounting firm’s money is running through Malta—casinos, cryptocurrency, and a trail that points toward terrorists and weapons—and the deeper Stone works the ledgers, the less they balance. Between a treacherous faculty tenure battle at home and a money-laundering hunt that spans continents, he learns the oldest rule in the book: follow the money, and it will lead you somewhere it doesn’t want you to go. Brainy, funny, and hardboiled to the last decimal.

G. Steven McMillan is an associate professor at the Abington campus of Penn State University. Prior to joining academia, Steve worked in accounting and real estate in the Philadelphia area. He has received four Fulbright awards that have taken him to Finland, Belgium, and Malta twice. An avid traveler, he has visited over 30 countries.