The Golden Gate Is Red

Inspired by the murder of millionaire financier and banker Ted Ammon: A tax investigator races against time to save the love of his life—and the man who stole her from him


Every tax cheat needs a lawyer, and every lawyer needs an investigator like Max Smoller. Max knows the tax code’s intricacies better than Uncle Sam himself, and lawyers pay handsomely for him to dig up their clients’ dirt, ensuring that no nasty surprises come out during trial. After years in the business, Smoller knows that every crook tells the same story—a tale forged by self-pity and unwavering greed. But he never thought he would hear that story from his former business partner Joe Dempsey.

 

Even at the start of their once-promising partnership, Smoller knew Dempsey’s brilliance would eventually catapult his friend toward success beyond their shabby office on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. But Smoller never expected his lover, Christina Lawson, to follow Dempsey out the door. Years after the betrayal, Lawson and Dempsey are separated, and the IRS is nipping at their heels. With prosecution, bankruptcy, and prison on the horizon, it’s up to Smoller to save his former partner and the only woman he ever loved—before it’s too late.

 

The Golden Gate Is Red is a riveting tale of avarice and betrayal, set against a vivid San Francisco backdrop. 

Jim Kohlberg is an author, director, and film producer. The founder of private equity firm Kohlberg & Company, he made his first foray into Hollywood as executive producer of Two Family House (1999), which won the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award in 2000. He has since produced or exec-produced four more films, including Trumbo (2007), a documentary about famed blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. In 2008 Kohlberg directed a theatrical production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at the Mountain View Performing Arts Center, and in 2011 he made his film directorial debut with The Music Never Stopped, which opened that year’s Sundance Festival, won several awards from music therapy groups who praised the film’s use of classic 1960s rock, and was called by Los Angeles Times critic Gary Goldstein “one film that fully merited a place in the best picture conversation.” His upcoming projects include a film adaptation of the bestselling novel Home in the Morning by Mary Glickman.

Kohlberg’s short fiction has been published in literary magazines such as the MacGuffin, the South Dakota Review, and the Distillery. The Golden Gate Is Red is his first novel.