Imagine if someone handed you a blank checkbook along with a new office and a full-time assistant. No rules or apparent limits. And no one waiting offstage to tell you what to do, or how much money is there for you to use. Ultimately, you learn that this anonymous benefactor has, in effect, provided you entrée into the cloistered world of billionaires and the methods by which they earn their unimaginable riches.

Given this incomparable opportunity, for reasons that only become clear as the story unfolds, is Seth Thomas, a jaded investigative journalist with The Washington Post. The tension and high stakes never let up as Thomas races to find out: Who is the mysterious billionaire benefactor that’s provided him this never-empty bank account? What exactly does this person want him to accomplish with all that money? And can he and his assistant even survive if he must deal directly with Russia’s Mafia kingpin and the country’s ruthless leader to get his answers?

That’s the premise of The Billionaires’ Club, a novel that journeys deep into the inner sanctum of this exclusive club—just 2,700 people now control more than half of all the world’s wealth.