In the hyper-calculated world of forensic accounting, numbers are supposed to tell a coherent story. But when forensic investigator Sharma and his sharp-witted partner Khanna take a closer look at the pre-IPO books of a skyrocketing enterprise, the math refuses to behave. Revenue is soaring, margins are climbing northwards, yet the underlying operational footprint is practically invisible.
What starts as a discreet, routine internal audit quickly morphs into a dangerous corporate chess match. From a suspicious blue hatchback tailing them through crowded city streets to a hidden microphone wired beneath a steering wheel, someone is desperate to keep the books cooked.
The trail abruptly pulls the partners out of Mumbai's boardroom chaos and drops them straight into the quiet English countryside of Leicester. There sits Cindy, an elderly, isolated widow holding an exact forty-eight per cent stake in the empire—shielded entirely from the true mechanics of the other fifty-two per cent.
As an intricate web of fictitious sales, unauthorized capitalizations, and mysterious personal loans begins to unravel, the stakes turn lethal. THE FORTY EIGHT PERCENT is a gritty, high-stakes financial thriller that proves the old investigator's adage: The numbers never lie—unless someone makes them. It is a complete work of Fiction and imagination.
The author is a seasoned financial professional holding prestigious credentials including CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner) and PGDBF (Post Graduate Diploma in Banking & Finance). With a rich, extensive background in internal audits and corporate risk consulting, they have spent years navigating the complex labyrinth of corporate ledgers, internal controls, and financial irregularities.
Drawing heavily from deep operational insights into how businesses function—and how internal mechanisms can be systematically bypassed—the author brings an unmatched level of technical precision, realism, and authentic corporate grit to the world of financial thrillers.