COMPRADOR-what's it about? Like Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, this is about a singular man, who has earned the right to answer to no one but himself...and the beliefs he stands for... Setting: Recall the financial meltdown suffered by the western world in 2007? America taking the biggest hit of all. Within a decade came yet another uppercut; one too many, too hard and too quickly. Breaking the U.S. Treasury with their wild, unchecked spending schemes, the politicians had spawned yet another tailspin the country couldn't pull out of...overwhelmed by debt, with fear polluting everyday life, the vaunted free-enterprise system buckles. Tricked into coming to Washington to collect nine tons of gold owed him by the government, Rushton Culhane, a comprador nonpareil, eventually rights the mess he finds...but at huge cost to himself and to much of the world. REVIEWS: "A winner..."-Lee Iacocca "A fast-paced thriller"-Los Angeles Times "An extremely well-written story of deceit, treachery, chicanery and world power."-ALA Booklist "Clever, stylish, demanding...discomforting. The U.S. predicament seems all too plausible."-The Washington Post "Sardonic, sophisticated...this high-spirited tale is told with style, wit and economy. David Cudlip's prose is a joy."-New York Times Book Review "David Cudlip has mastered the art of international commodity trading. One of the rare books written on the art of physical commodity trading that spans the globe. As a trader myself, I must say that Cudlip has a lock on the chaos, intrigue, and stress that is involved in trading raw products. Throw in a few murders and several larger than life characters and you have a winner. If you can put this book down before finishing, I'll eat my hat."-by a customer (as posted on Amazon). ..".such a good writer as David Cudlip should not be out of print -Constance Cappel, former editor of Vogue (as posted on Amazon).

A courtroom crime drama on a par with Robert Traver's Anatomy of a Murder. A young, highly acclaimed film actress is on trial for allegedly murdering Marc Sterne, the son of a Hollywood studio mogul, Julio Sterne. The evidence against her is mainly circumstantial, yet it's up to the jury to decide if she'll walk the hard walk or not...figuring into the story is the presiding judge, Cliff Rhodes, who has a lot more at stake in the outcome than he ever imagined...then there's Audrey Sterne, the victim's step-mother, and Rhodes's paramour of an earlier time. She is drawn into the fray in ways that threaten her entire way of life, not least of which is her marriage to Julio Sterne, father to the deceased and the big-shot film maker. And then what of Romaine Brook, the celebrated young Oscar-winning actress? Is she innocent of the alleged murder? Being framed? Or is she duping the jury by putting on the best act of her life? The situation is further tangled when Alonzo Fahey, a private-eye with Quixotic tendencies, unwittingly opens Pandora's Box, as he makes inquiries in the wrong places, although for the right reasons. The outcome will shorten your breath...when, just as that great pundit H. L. Mencken once observed: "Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice."