A provocative thriller posing a dangerous question: what if federal income tax is illegal?

'The only two certainties in life are death and taxes.'
Mark Twain

What if all it took to bring the United States to its knees was one legal error in the ratification of the 16th Amendment over a century ago? Money is power and the problem could mean that the federal government has never been entitled to the billions of dollars of income tax it has been collecting.

It's not the kind of information the Treasury Department would want to fall into the hands of a rogue North Korean. And when it does, Stephanie Nelle, head of the elite intelligence division within the Justice Department, wants only one man to track him down: Cotton Malone.
Dragged out of retirement, Cotton is launched into a harrowing chase that begins in Venice and ends in the remote highlands of Croatia - with the world economy at stake.
Only death and taxes are certain?

Maybe not.

A provocative thriller for fans of Dan Brown and David Baldacci, from the top-ten New York Times bestselling author.

The 16th Amendment to the Constitution legalized federal income tax, but what if there were problems with the 1913 ratification of that amendment? Problems that call into question decades of tax collecting, and could even bring down the US economy. There is a surprising truth to this possibility - a truth wholly entertained by Steve Berry in this fast-paced thriller.

His protagonist, Cotton Malone, once a member of an elite intelligence division within the Justice Department known as the Magellan Billet, is now retired. But when his former-boss, Stephanie Nelle, asks him to track a rogue North Korean who may have acquired some top secret Treasury Department files - the kind that could bring the United States to its knees. Malone is vaulted into a harrowing twenty-four-hour chase that begins on the water in Venice and ends in the remote highlands of Croatia.

With appearances by Franklin Roosevelt, Andrew Mellon, and a curious painting that still hangs in the National Gallery of Art, Steve Berry's trademark mix of history and suspense is 90% fact and 10% exciting speculation.