A Higher Power

In this tale of corporate skullduggery and mystical awakening, a multibillionaire decides to radically alter his course and seek a clearer path to happiness.

Nick Dalca inherited $1 billion from his father, Ilie, who died young after building a successful corporation from the wreckage left to him by his own profligate dad, Emilian. Nick’s grandfather, a Rumanian immigrant, has died but his regretful spirit lingers, relaying messages to two mother-daughter psychics who are able to comprehend him. Fortuitously, the younger medium is Nick’s longtime, stalwart secretary, Anne Drake. Nick is the sole controller of the Dalca Group of 35 corporations and hundreds of subsidiaries. He is a very wealthy man. But recently he has lost interest is running his businesses, even in making money. He suffered a terrible loss two years earlier when the private plane carrying his wife and son to a vacation spot in France apparently crashed but was never recovered. With some spiritual guidance from Anne, and his own initiative, Nick decides to covertly sell his entire corporate holdings in one package. Those conducting the transaction are elated at the news because, with the typical hyperbolic flourish employed by the author, “it was the largest deal in the history of private business.” An agreement is struck with a foreign bank for “$180 billion…Cash.” The negotiation`s, handled in a remarkably jejeune manner in the book’s weakest sections, are done secretly to avoid notice by some trying to sabotage the arrangement. More effective are Davidsohn’s (Mare Crisium, 2015, etc.) descriptions of travels through France, Norway, and Germany. The scenery, food, and wine, coupled with a burgeoning love affair,create an appealing sense of joy. Also well expressed are the author’s anti-business rants. Nick: “The truth is, I don’t know one single buddy of mine who wakes up in the morning, rubs his palms, and says I’m going to create jobs today. We don’t care, Anne....what we want is more money, more power.”

An uneven financial tale that attempts to merge the commercial and the spiritual.