Shadow Account, by Stephen Frey

This audiobook was gotten from the Alachua County Public Library, was on 10 CDs and was read by Ken Kliban.

Connor Ashby is a young investment banker, lounging in his apartment with his hot girlfriend when he checks his email. It appears to have been sent to him by mistake. It's from someone named "Rusty" who is panicking and telling his boss that their book-cooking plot is about to be uncovered. As he is contemplating the origin of this missive, hot girlfriend asks him to go out and get her something. When he comes back, his apartment has been trashed, the girl is dead, and there is an armed man with bad aim still inside. Connor escapes with only a minor wound, but when he gets back with the police, the apartment is in good order, the girlfriend is gone, and now it's about to get complicated.

This promising start loses its way when it becomes tangled with yet another complicated story that is populated with less interesting characters. This book was needlessly complex and the story too improbable. It's like the mad scientist who is leaving the hero to die as soon as the rats chew through the cheese-encrusted rope that holds back the net full of hungry fiddler crabs that are lusting for human flesh. There has to be a simpler way to get things done.

I give it 2 stars for at least keeping me from moving on to the next book.