At Any Cost unravels the twisted story of Rod Covlin, whose
unrepentant greed drove him to an unspeakable act of murder and betrayal
that rocked New York City.
Wealthy, beautiful, and brilliant, Shele Danishefsky had fulfillment at
her fingertips. Having conquered Wall Street, she was eager to build a
family with her much younger husband, promising Ivy League graduate Rod
Covlin. But when his hidden vices surfaced, marital harmony gave way to
a merciless divorce. Rod had long depended on Shele's income to fund his
tastes for high stakes backgammon and infidelity--and she finally vowed
to sever him from her will. In late December 2009, Shele made an
appointment with her lawyer to block him from her millions. She would
never make it to that meeting.
Two days later, on New Year's Eve, Shele was found dead in the bathtub
of her Upper West Side apartment. Police ruled it an accident, and
Shele's deeply Orthodox Jewish family quickly buried her without an
autopsy on religious grounds. Rod had a clear path to his ex-wife's
fortune, but suspicions about her death lingered. As the two families
warred over custody of Shele's children--and their inheritance-- Rod
concocted a series of increasingly demented schemes, even plotting to
kill his own parents, to secure the treasure. And as investigators
closed in, Rod committed a final, desperate act to frame his own
daughter for her mother's death.
Journalists Rebecca Rosenberg and Selim Algar reconstruct the ten years
that passed between the day Shele was found dead and the day her killer
faced justice in this riveting account of how one man's irrepressible
greed devolved into obsession, manipulation, and murder.
