'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.