Accosting the Golden Spire

Accosting the Golden Spire, Third Edition mixes financial fraud, crime, ethics, and accounting practice together to provide a better way of learning the accounting process. Featuring a sleuth who handles balance sheets and income statements the way most detectives handle guns, Lenny Cramer and his humorous sidekick put accounting and business concepts into real-life context.

Dr. Cramer, a professor at the Wharton School, operates a small forensic accounting firm. He teaches, testifies before Congress, and appears as an expert witness in a court battle. But the real action occurs when he investigates financial fraud in a friend's jade shop. Using his forensic skills, he uncovers a plot to steal treasures from a remote Asian country and almost gets himself killed trying to stop the heist.

Golden Spire is an educational novel designed as a supplement to financial accounting courses and professional ethics seminars at either the undergraduate or graduate level. It has been used successfully near the end of principles of accounting, at the beginning of intermediate accounting, and as basis for the discussion of professional codes of conduct in an accounting ethics course. The supplement would also be ideal for an MBA program which has a light coverage of accounting, or in CPA firms' in-house training programs as an enrichment exercise.

Classroom tests of early drafts of this third edition and the previous two published editions have demonstrated repeatedly that students enjoy reading the instructional thriller and learn the accounting concepts more readily than through traditional texts.

"Proves that the phrase 'suspenseful accounting' is not necessarily an oxymoron."
—Wall Street Journal

"Master of the teaching novel, a new form of instruction designed to explain to students what CPAs really do."
—Accounting News

"He focuses on protagonists like the forensic accountant — the investigator of ledgers — allowing the otherwise dry material
to take on the aura of mystery. The dramatic intrigue, in turn, helps the student- reader to retain the principles.
—Administrator

"I had never read an accounting novel before. It is a 'novel' idea which helped me to want to read more. Usually accounting books are rather dry. Making the topic more interesting and adding drama and humor is important in teaching. It keeps the learner engaged. I enjoyed reading Golden Spire very much."
— Accounting Major, California State University, Northridge

When students are engaged with story, they tend to learn more, retain more, and are better able to apply theory to practice. Learning in context makes the material presented more interesting by providing a real-world setting for principles discussed.

Golden Spire can be used in a variety of ways to augment your course. The authors have experience using the novel as a supplemental reading, as a springboard for classroom and online discussions, and as a basis for reflective journaling to develop student writing skills. The Instructor's Guide provides resources to help you integrate this forensic thriller into your course curriculum.