A novel by Warren Halvorsen
The Ghost
Payroll
Four dead workers.
Still active in the records.
State audit investigator Leah Mercer has eleven days to reconcile the records for a naval yard’s proposed sale. A match in the files starts the inquiry. It does not identify who kept the names active.
The Ghost Payroll
What does it cost
to correct a record?
Forensic accounting suspense
Industrial procedural thriller
At the decommissioned Marrow Point naval yard, four workers killed fifteen years ago still appear in current payroll-support and safety-observer records. Leah Mercer, a senior investigator in the State Comptroller’s Special Audit Unit, has eleven days for the sale-readiness audit.
She follows payroll annexes, badge-source receipts, and observer checklists across offices with separate responsibilities. A name in a payroll row does not establish who received the money. To take a finding forward, Leah must connect the sources and preserve the evidence.
Jobs, family consent, and cleanup funds are tied to the yard’s future. As access tightens, Leah has to decide what she can establish, what needs another check, and what remedy her authority can support.
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Warren Halvorsen
Warren Halvorsen is the pen name for corporate, industrial, and procedural suspense. His fiction follows auditors, investigators, and workers through records, restricted access, and decisions with public consequences. Pressure comes from what they can establish, what they are authorized to do, and who depends on the result.
Reader correspondence
Contact Warren Halvorsen by email.