The CEO

by Peter Ralph

Douglas Aspine knew that being CEO of a public company was twenty times more lucrative than winning the lottery.
He was forty-five and time was running out when fate dealt him an unexpected opportunity. The company was old, staid and well-respected but it was under performing and Aspine was determined to turn it around no matter who he had to crush.

Soon he was at war with the company's employees, unions, suppliers, financiers and co-directors but nothing was going to stop him. Not his chairman, not his wife, not his mistress, not the anonymous death threats and definitely not the press. Aspine could almost taste the glory, the riches and peer recognition he'd craved for so long. He knew he had countless detractors and enemies who he contemptuously labelled "losers"and paid no heed to.
Would this prove to be a miscalculation of monumental proportions or would he prevail?

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Amazon, Business

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Peter Ralph is a former ‘big four’ chartered accountant who specialized in corporate reconstructions, recoveries, and liquidations. In the reconstructions, he acted as a surgeon chopping away the excess fat. In the recoveries, he was like a lifeguard giving mouth to mouth. In the liquidations, he was a combination of funeral director and forensic investigator.

As a forensic investigator, Peter spent a large part of his career investigating the reasons for corporate collapses and testifying in the courts.

Later he became CEO of one of his recovery clients, a heavy transport equipment designer, and manufacturer that he successfully floated as a public company.

He has a background well suited to writing financial thrillers. In 2012, he was highly commended in the Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Awards, for his novel about unconventional gas, Dirty Fracking Business.

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Reviews

[Tulay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read.

Author created one arrogant, brutal and greedy character. He lives and works in Melbourne, Australia, CEO of building company. Builds housing and office buildings, (not golf courses). You'll truly hate this womanizing, manipulating SOB.
All the investigating agencies in Melbourne can't stop him. One woman, after her husband's suicide befriended him. Read and find out the results of this friendship.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The CEO¬ is a business thriller by Peter Ralph. The setting is in Australia which I found interesting as most business novels that I have read are set in New York City or London
Douglas Aspine is the general manager of Biotech Products. He brings in a good salary but lives way beyond his means. He and his wife have a large house, three children who go to private schools, and purchase just about whatever they wish. He also keeps a mistress in an apartment and gave her a car. It costs around $60,000 a year just to keep her. He is looking for a CEO position but so far has been unable to find one.
Finally he is offered the position as CEO for Mercury Company. Sir Edward Philby who is on the board of directors pushes for his getting the position. The former CEO Harry Denton pushes just as hard to not get him. The company has been run as a family business based on fair play, honesty, and high ethical values. Harry is afraid Douglas doesn’t fit the standards he has.
The board is more interested in giving a higher dividend to its shareholders and goes along with Edward in getting Douglas. Now Douglas has a big company to make have better profits. If he gets 50% better, he will get a substantial bonus. Can Douglas get the company back on its feet? Will this make his already shady character even worse? With a news reporter out to get him, can he move fast enough to avoid her?

The book was well written. The details are enough to really get you into the book but not too much to bore you. The characters, while some are unsavory, are well developed and come with their own surprises.

[Oleg Shevelyov · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very compelling plot with interesting details about management fraud but the writing itself isn't that great. Problems I noted: 1) head-hopping (the most serious one! - switching from the mind of one character to another sometimes in the same paragraph, which is very confusing), 2) bad speech tagging (lots of adjectives attached to speech tags; also, characters often "giggle" phrases or do other weird actions with speech which don't help to immerse into their world; sometimes they even use verbs unrelated to speech itself in speech tags), 3) banal pieces of dialog not serving any purpose, 4) explanatory pieces of dialog (which sole purpose to put words into character's mouth to explain something but not something the character actually would say). There were more writing-related problems I've forgotten already... said that I still enjoyed the story. It grabbed me from the beginning and, never mind the flaws in writing I went through it easily. Peter Ralph, apparently, knows the corporate domain very well, has a lot to tell, and is a good story teller. I'll likely be reading his books again since those writing problems I mentioned above are actually quite easy to fix once someone points out to them. I'm sure he'll do much better in his future books. It's the storytelling which is hard to learn, and he is doing just fine there.

[Greg Eldred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. Douglas is a snake. He cares about nobody. He screws over his employees, employers, friends and family all to benefit himself.

He makes a mistake though with the wife of one of his employees who kills himself over guilt and is locked up for life.

[Beth Birnbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

The CEO by Peter Ralph

I read The CEO a few years ago, and rediscovered it after I read the sequel, The Revenge of the CEO. I almost never reread books, but The CEO was even better the second time around. Both books hold up well without each other, but together, WOW!
Douglas Aspine is greedy, ambitious, narcissistic, and living well above his means. On the brink of disaster, he lies and cheats to become the CEO of Mercury, a building firm in Australia. His goal is to rape as much money from the company as possible. He leaves a stream of financial victims and destroyed lives in his wake, including his own family. His only true feelings are for himself.
Looking back on my own life, I realize that he’s not much worse than a lot of business practices I’ve read about in the news, personally run across, and/or been victimized by, so unfortunately I could definitely relate to the plot. At least Aspine didn’t declare bankruptcy whenever he felt like it, unlike a well-known builder constantly in the news. But his favorite two words are also, “You’re fired.”
Aspine has simply taken his avaricious behavior a step or two outside the law, well past ignoring the few financial regulations in danger of being rescinded in the United States. His slash and burn, profit today, screw tomorrow, is a philosophy the United States is currently fighting to either overturn or strengthen.
Enough of American politics, and back to the book, although greed and corruption appear to be universal. Everyone in Australia knows Aspine’s guilty, but nobody can prove it, not the people he worked with, his victims, or the regulators desperately trying to find evidence. Aspine’s major talent, beside fraud and theft, is covering his tracks and deflecting blame.
His destruction of a traditional company that has pride in their reputation, their fair treatment of employees, and in their product, is something we’ve seen happening again and again since corporate takeovers became fashionable in the 1980’s.
The devolution of Aspine’s already compromised morality, and his embrace of the criminal and cruel, rings true throughout both books. Before you think it’s overdone, nobody could be that evil, just think Bernie Madoff.
I only hope that his financial malfeasance doesn’t give real crooks inspiration to up their game.
Peter Ralph takes his knowledge of the real world of white collar crime (as someone on the other side) and makes it not only easy to understand, but fascinating and suspenseful. He adds enough physical crime to up the tension and suspense. His characters are vivid, real, and either sympathetic, or fun to hate. He slips an education in white collar crime into a great story so well written, you’ll never notice how much you learned.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you author, Dave Stanton for recommending this book. What a Monster this man, the lead character is. My husband and I worked in companies that were family owned. He was in for the long term and the company holding steady until it was sold to a corporation. What took place was somewhat like what happened in this book, although not by a monster of a man thankfully. Money and power is what drove a very intelligent business man to become a ruthless, immoral, liar that took advantage of so many innocent people. I was so happy to see him get caught and punished. Like Peter Ralph's writing, even with some British words and phrases.

[Melanie Melancon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a fast paced story about a truly evil CEO of a company that builds and sells apartments and offices. I would have given it 5stars, except that I can't even imagine a person this evil. His actions are purely self-serving, completely without empathy. Perhaps there are CEO who are like this, but to me it was too much.

The ending was a surprise. That said, the rest of the book was one diabolical move after another.

[David Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well Devised

I believe that we all know someone in upper management who we despise. Peter Ralph conjured up Douglas Aspine who totally fit the bill of an arrogant CEO, and that is his best quality. The characters in the supporting roles were perfect for this storyline, and the plot rolled on to a justified conclusion. I see a part two available in this saga, this may be a must read.

[Book Him Danno · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written story that will have you wondering just how much damage a ruthless individual can do to others and not care. The storyline progresses very well and will keep the reader's interest to the last page. I love a story where justice is served especially when it is done with a twist.

I have rated this book 4 stars.

I obtained this book from Amazon in Kindle format.
Thank You Frank

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED THIS BOOK

I haven't read a financial thriller in awhile and very pleased to have come across this one. With each page turn I disliked more and more this greedy and power driven CEO, Douglas Aspine and hoped he would get his comeuppance for all his devious, cruel and scheming actions. A fantastic read.

[Lois Eubank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievable

I have never read a story like this before, it was so well written with knowledgeable details. The author created a character you couldn't stand, yet had to keep reading to see what happened. After all was said and done; it has the perfect ending. Can hardly wait to read more from this author!!

[Mary C Platter · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a monster!

He thought he had all the answers and hurt so many people. I could not wait to find how he would get paid back. It was a very good ending. Although the author used a lot of British terms and words, it was not a problem.

[Ann Keeran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Ralph has written another thrilling novel with characters that are intriguing. You'll have trouble putting this down! Well written and amazingly captivating. A Peter Ralph book in the hand is worth TEN in the bookstore!

[Beverly McFall Killough · Rating 5 out of 5]

The CEO

Exciting but very complicated. Very twisting and involved with power, fraud, and cover up processes. It keep me turning pages just to see the ending. It is a story of misused power for monetary gain, but has a lot of information about big business.

[Marjorie · Rating 5 out of 5]

White Collar

Karma, what goes around comes around. Great and sad story. It's a true story or seems to be, characters are special!

[Patches Deese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Ralph is a great thriller writer, be has excelled even himself . The plot may be a little complex for some, but I was really fascinated by the dark side of the financial world.

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Struggle to finish. Poorly written, the Kindle translation was terrible. Scene changes from sentence to sentence, with no breaks. Cliche ridden characters with no development and no nuance.

[J. Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The world has known plenty of megalomaniacal anti-heroes. Joining the ranks of Gordon Gekko, Walter White, and Scrooge McDuck is Douglas Aspine, a man who’s charisma is only equal to his ego.

Douglas worships a three-head deity: money, power, and prestige, and he won’t let a little thing like human decency get in his way as he ascends in the Australian business world. When Aspine is tapped to become the CEO of a well-respected but slow performing building company, Mercury Enterprises, Aspine sees a launching pad to wealth and power.

Aspine cares nothing for the hundreds of employees he sacks, the family he ignores, or the mistress he abuses as he focuses completely on squeezing every last penny out of Mercury by any means necessary. Along the way, his enemies begin to pile up, but Aspine is sure that he is smart enough, rich enough, and powerful enough to stay one step ahead of them all.

The CEO by author Peter Ralph is a fast moving and fascinating look into the soul of a man without a shred of integrity or decency. Aspine is savvy and ruthless and his utter lack of remorse makes him a worthy villain against the many people he wounds, crushes, and terrifies.
I have to admit when I first started this book it took some getting used to. I couldn’t find anything redeeming about Aspine, but I quickly learned that was the entire point. As a reader I despised Aspine but found myself sucked into his precarious web. As the book got deeper and darker, I had to keep reading, had to keep praying that someone, somehow would take Aspine down.

Ralph also does a good job of embroiling Aspine in believable frauds that are reminiscent of crimes that have brought down real life CEOs. Aspine’s story isn’t just about a single greedy individual who is willing to break the law and play dirty. He very much represents the special power and privilege that many of the wealthiest individuals enjoy and the various methods they use to maintain their power.

This book did have some issues that I felt detracted from its overall quality. The narrative regularly slingshots the perspective over to side characters without any breaks or indications that the switch has been made. These little sojourns often felt confusing and disjointed, especially because there was little consistency in the change of perspective. We might see through the eyes of a character at the beginning of the book for two paragraphs and then for a page at the very end.

My biggest problem with the book was Aspine himself. He was just too evil. It’s true that his sociopathic nature was darkly compelling, but he seemed to be utterly and completely empty. I think the best characters are painted in shades of gray, and I would have liked to have seen more depth in Aspine. Why did he feel so compelled to enrich himself? Did he have any tiny spark of humanity within him? Had he been more nuanced, I think I could have understood him more and felt that much more engrossed throughout the book.

With all that said, The CEO is a good read with an extremely satisfying ending. Anyone who enjoys a good anti-hero or who is up for a corporate novel of lies and deception will likely enjoy watching Aspine spin his black web.

[Winifred Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a captivating story about a truly evil businessman. Douglas Aspine lies and cheats not only for his own profit but for the joy of showing up anyone he thinks hasn’t treated him properly, from his wife to his mistress to the bank manager who denies him a loan. He shows no concern for his children either. He insults just about everyone except those few people whose help he wants. His favorite facial expression seems to be a smirk. Even his struggles to make ends meet on a mere $400,000 salary didn’t endear him to me. As a writer myself, I’ve been told your protagonist should be the sort of person your reader can empathize with. Readers will stick with someone they care about, watching him battle obstacle after obstacle because they’re hoping he’ll eventually succeed. With Aspine, I hated him and watched him overcome obstacle after obstacle hoping he would eventually fail. I was impressed that in spite of this kind of upside down plot structure, Peter Ralph kept me fascinated to the end.

The book is smoothly written. The suspense never lets up. But much of my fascination was due to the business details which make the book feel very real and are drawn I imagine from Ralph’s experience in the field. Aspine is hired to turn around a company that has a long-established impeccable reputation because its stock hasn’t gone anywhere. This kind of stock-focused turnaround, of course, involves massive lay-offs and increased borrowing. In this case it also involves cheapening the product they’re selling and various financial shenanigans. So we get in on the board meetings, the negotiations with the banks, the brutal down-sizing, and Aspine’s manipulating of both the media and his employees. I don’t know how realistic Aspine is, but I fear he’s not as extreme a character as I’d like to think. To me what was most chilling was not so much his ruthlessness though but the way many other people, people who knew he was despicable and hated him too, went along with his schemes, sometimes out of fear of what he could do to them but often just because he was making them money.

In many ways, however, Aspine is a rogue CEO, a man who has pulled himself up through his own efforts rather than being a member of the old-boy network, so in spite of interesting stuff about stock options, offshore banking, and reports to regulatory agencies, this isn’t an exposé about how big corporations work. In fact, I kind of missed the lobbyists and more about the use of politicians to harness governmental power. But that’s not a criticism of the novel, of course. The novel just claims to be a financial thriller, and on that it delivers as I kept turning the pages while the few good people in the book tried to bring Aspine down and he kept slipping out of their grasp until the surprising end.

I was given a review copy of this book in exchange for a non-reciprocal review.

[Greg Dragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The CEO follows the rise of Douglas Aspine, a sociopathic, predatory, shark, whose quest for money and power is so obsessive that he destroys anyone that gets in his way—even his own family.

I absolutely loathed “Doug” and everything about him but found myself hooked so hard that I powered through to the end. I just had to know what the resolution was for someone so evil. The author did an excellent job of making me feel like a fly on the wall listening in on the intense conversations and it was very easy to keep up with every scene.

The writing for The CEO is clean and well edited—allowing me to focus on the story without distraction, and the pacing was solid, feeling neither rushed nor padded.

The relative ease that Douglas did his sharking throughout The CEO was an unexpected hook for me - let me explain. Even the times when he did get in trouble, Douglas was always a step ahead of the game. While power is stressed as a reason behind the relative ease in which he raped, robbed, and conned the women and men in his life, it was just so much that I kept reading, wanting him to finally run out of aces up his sleeve. Who in the hell has this much luck?

There were parts in The CEO where I felt like I was seeing scenes from an early James Bond movie (Connery and Moore era). Women from all walks of life enter into Aspine's life but as I read it from his point of view, it really drove home how much of a sexist predator he was. Women were either gold diggers, or were used sexually—or just blatantly assaulted—to ease his tension... I found myself rooting for Aspine at one point of the story—because believe it or not he is charming—but he would snap me back into reality by the next page. At least James Bond would buy you a drink first.

This is my honest review of The CEO, edited to remove the "squirrel" moments I had dissecting details that weren't necessarily helpful to you the potential reader. I burnt through this book in three days despite a busy schedule because it is that good. I hope to never meet a Douglas Aspine in my lifetime, and The CEO has scared me into being wary of them in the future.

[Linda Kain · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Must Read

This book was hard to put down once I started it. It shows how one person can manipulate a business from the inside and hide what he is doing. It makes you think about how one person with so much control can change the way the public perceives a business. I really enjoyed reading this book and Peter Ralph does a good job of showing the inner workings of a business. I recommend this book to everyone. You won't be disappointed.

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cracking financial thriller & cautionary tale. Douglas Aspine is a character I loved to hate. Watching his financial brinkmanship and oneupmanship had me rooting for him despite myself. It was fascinating to get a peek behind the scenes of his high-flying business deals and internecine corporate politics. Luckily, I’ve never had to deal with men like Aspine personally, but my husband has when he worked as a CEO. The stories I could tell…. Guys like Aspine are brought into a company to increase shareholder value by any means necessary, and sometimes those means get ugly and the politics nasty—which makes for great drama and storytelling. It’s clear to me that the author of The CEO has done real-life research, which gives the book authority and authenticity. I found the dialogue well done—very realistic—and the descriptions pacy, never boring. I would have liked to suffer alongside Aspine more, feeling more of his victimhood, as in books like The Talented Mr Riply by Patricia Highsmith, which is one of my favorite novel featuring a morally ambiguous hero, but I think the author wanted me to feel ambivalent about Aspine, not liking him too much and yet still rooting for him. It worked. I was on the edge of my seat, watching Aspine’s struggles the way some people like to read the gossip columns, with delicious, guilty curiosity. Is Aspine’s story a train wreck or a tale of last-minute triumph? I won’t tell. Read the book to find out...

[Philip Fanara · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The CEO" is proof of why it's important to expand your reading horizon outside the mainstream public. This book was absolutely FANTASTIC!

The author beautifully fuses very real business concepts with the excitement that a thriller provides. The story kept me interested the entire way through, and never got to the point of ridiculousness that so many fiction books eventually bleed into. The author's business knowledge definitely shines through in this book.

I'd recommend this book to anyone with an interest in business - that includes businesspeople and students. In fact, this book should be required reading for business classes. Yes, it's that good - and much more entertaining than a textbook.

[Corey Colyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a Freebie on Amazon. Since I like business intrigue, I thought I'd give it a shot. What an infuriatingly uneven book. Ralph has talent. In this book, plot development around the protagonist's business shenanigans is really quite well done. In fact, that is the only reason I finished this book. I wanted to know how the story would end. But to get to the end, you have to wade through some pretty terrible character development. The anti-hero protagonist has no redeeming qualities and most of the other characters are one dimensional.

This is fine for a free book. But I wouldn't have paid for it.

[T.L.]

Ralph spins a yarn of one Douglas Aspine, who stealthily climbs the ladder into CEO position, managing to spin bonuses and stock options out of thin air. He steps on people, lies, wheels and deals and makes it all look easy. Things do finally come crashing down and Aspine gets his and it's quite satisfying when it happens. There's a 2nd book, but honestly, I'd rather stop here and see Aspine get his just desserts.

[Carolyn Dewalt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a nice person

I stopped reading this book almost at the halfway point. The crude, rude, egotistical CEO just made me too mad to continue. Maybe that is good writing but it was not good reading.

[Michelle Prak]

What a strange book. Sensational, badly edited, a cast of thousands - yet a compelling story that had to be finished.

Let's call it Fifty Shades of CEO.

[Donna K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have loved every peter ralph book I have read

[Susan McReynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved it!

[charlotte a pals · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cap

Spectacular I was hooked after reading the first paragraph. Had a hard putting the book down. I hated Aspine all throughout the book. Ruthless eastward.