The dollar is as mighty as the sword in this well-researched, far-reaching saga.
A thriller set in the period from WWII to the fall of the Soviet Union blends finance, politics, love, and survival.
In Landori’s sprawling novel, which relies heavily on flashbacks to provide backstory and uses many international locales, much of the action takes place during the Cold War. A helicopter crash leaves intelligence agent Tom Karas with a new face and a new identity, allowing this “talented amateur” to serve his spymasters in a new way—and for him perhaps to begin a new life. Possessing extraordinary business acumen, Karas now fights with money instead of bullets—but a war of any kind eventually calls for guns. Karas is reborn as Alejandro Samos, a successful private banker in Panama. His mission is to become a player in the secretive world of private banking and money laundering and bring down or influence the criminals, communists, and revolutionaries (or shareholders) who benefit from them. A survivor of Nazi-occupied Hungary, some of Karas’ most essential skills have nothing to do with currency. There will always be “the ten-year-old boy living inside him who survived the hardscrabble existence in post-war Budapest.” Because of this, there isn’t a scrape or jam he can’t escape, whether it’s a Cuban prison or an attempted hit, save for one: himself. He loves and trusts nobody. These character flaws keep him both wary and breathing, and except for brief encounters, it would best for everyone if he kept his distance from any romantic prospects. There’s not much weaponry used here; instead, we have a bit of common sense and spycraft. We also have a fictional exploration of how complicated and shady the international finance system can be—and Karas learns that the people who use and benefit from this dark system can be surprising. The financially challenged may struggle with numbers and schemes, but gawking at the lavish lifestyles of the corrupt international elites is highly entertaining.
The dollar is as mighty as the sword in this well-researched, far-reaching saga.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-03-910466-2
Page Count: 732
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Strangely stuffy and muted.
The little-known story of the Black woman who supervised J. Pierpont Morgan’s storied library.
It's 1905, and financier J.P. Morgan is seeking a librarian for his burgeoning collection of rare books and classical and Renaissance artworks. Belle da Costa Greene, with her on-the-job training at Princeton University, seems the ideal candidate. But Belle has a secret: Born Belle Marion Greener, she is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard, and she's passing as White. Her mother, Genevieve, daughter of a prominent African American family in Washington, D.C., decided on moving to New York to live as White to expand her family’s opportunities. Richard, an early civil rights advocate, was so dismayed by Genevieve’s decision that he left the family. As Belle thrives in her new position, the main source of suspense is whether her secret will be discovered. But the stakes are low—history discloses that the career-ending exposure she feared never came. There are close calls. J.P. is incensed with her but not because of her race: She considered buying a Matisse. Anne Morgan, J.P.’s disgruntled daughter, insinuates that Belle has “tropical roots,” but Belle is perfectly capable of leveraging Anne’s own secrets against her. Leverage is a talent of Belle’s, and her ruthless negotiating prowess—not to mention her fashion sense and flirtatious mien—wins her grudging admiration and a certain notoriety in the all-White and male world of curators and dealers. Though instructive about both the Morgan collection and racial injustice, the book is exposition-laden and its dialogue is stilted—the characters, particularly Belle, tend to declaim rather than discuss. The real Belle left scant records, so the authors must flesh out her personal life, particularly her affair with Renaissance expert Bernard Berenson and the sexual tension between Belle and Morgan. But Belle’s mask of competence and confidence, so ably depicted, distances readers from her internal clashes, just as her veneer must have deterred close inquiry in real life.
Strangely stuffy and muted.Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-10153-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
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