When greed is your mistress and power her aphrodisiac, people become expendable.

Set in Philadelphia PA, Larceny presents an intricate web of deception and diabolical revenge, where avarice and lust create a backdrop for murder. When self-made millionaire, Richard Gillespie senses his firm is crumbling, he develops a complex plan to save his legacy. Gillespie uses Dr. Bridgette Lonerghan, a university executive, to access a valuable portfolio of inventions. The inventor, Dr. Joseph Ralinski, pocketing millions from side deals over the years, compels high-ranking university officials including Provost Iconera; to set sights on toppling Ralinski’s financial fortress.

Lonerghan becomes a pawn in a game of ego and greed between Gillespie and his nemesis, Louis Jacobsen – head of the university’s Technology Transfer Office, her former lover. Jacobson loses focus when he discovers his unfaithful wife is drugging him into spousal submission and plots his revenge.

“This deal is getting interesting,” Gillespie observes. “Three people, three angles. Jacobson, greed and selfishness; Iconera, self-righteousness coupled with mistrust; and finally Ralinski, self-importance and arrogance. The only common denominator is ‘self’. The question is how to play this to gain the maximum advantage.”

FBI involvement escalates the tension and the body count starts to rise.

A well-heeled Philadelphia, PA businessman and self-made millionaire, senses that the firm he founded may be coming apart at the seams. The company is no longer growing and may actually be headed off a cliff towards bankruptcy. This eventuality will destroy the fame and fortune that the firm has been enjoying since it was founded. The firm’s main source of investments has been the fledgling inventions spawned by a large research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Richard Gillespie, never one to let pleasure interfere with the noble pursuit of business falls precipitously and involuntarily in love with a deal-making executive at National University. Dr. Bridgette Lonerghan becomes a pawn in the game of lust, ego and greed between Gillespie and his nemesis, Louis Jacobsen – the Capo (the boss) of the University’s Technology Transfer Office. Up to this point, Dr. Lonerghan’s affections were virtually exclusively plied by her boss, whose marriage has skidded to an abrupt halt, leaving Jacobsen hopelessly out of control both emotionally and professionally. For his part, Jacobsen refuses to recognize the problems inherent in his lust-crazed pursuit until he realizes his wife has been unfaithful and has drugged him into spousal submission. When he discovers her actions, Jacobsen lashes out against her in a most devious and diabolical way. Richard Gillespie uses Bridgette Lonerghan to gain access to a valuable portfolio of inventions by a money hungry faculty member who has pocketed more than $20 million personally from side deals he has cut over the years in violation of university guidelines. Several high-ranking executives at the university have their sights set on toppling Dr. Joseph Ralinski and his financial fortress that he jealously guards. Another minor executive in Jacobsen’s cadre of underlings has been feathering his retirement nest with kickbacks from local law firms whose partners had agreed to pay illicit funds to Franklin Rhymes in return for millions of dollars of annual billings from the university. Rhymes is attempting to build a large enough offshore bank account to escape a morally strong and righteous woman who only wants him to comply with the laws of society. Rhymes’ greed grows as anxiety over the slow growth of the offshore bank account, causing him to push harder for bigger dollars and more accomplices at other law firms. The partners he has drawn into his scheme have been discovered and pull him down with them while Marcelyn, his wife fights monumentally to save her husband and her comfortable and respectable life. The FBI has been monitoring the progress of an ongoing investigation into graft and corruption at research universities generally and National specifically. An old business acquaintance, personal friend and mentor of Richard Gillespie arrives in support of his friend and pupil, protecting him with murder and deception in order to enable Gillespie’s diabolical plot to succeed. Albert Blake, a retired prominent Philadelphia lawyer, becomes suspicious of anyone and everyone except his star pupil and it’s that one vulnerability that becomes his undoing. Blake’s background and history is lousy with underworld connections that to date have eluded Federal authorities. As the Federal noose tightens around Gillespie’s neck, he makes a deal with the authorities to fell all of his friends and accomplices in return for his freedom.

Salvatore Grasso was born and raised in West Philadelphia. He currently lives in Media, Pennsylvania with the two youngest of his four children. He is a senior operations and finance executive with significant business experience. Sal has been writing fiction for several years. All of his books are based in Philadelphia.