PANDION

In this thriller, a young man who has lost almost everything faces threats to himself and his family.

Atticus Forester’s family is immensely wealthy and powerful thanks to Pandion Capital, a hedge fund founded by his father and uncle. But one fateful morning, the corporate jet explodes upon takeoff, killing Atti’s father, mother, and older brother. As fate would have it, Atti missed the plane (his father, Hugo, the pilot, was tyrannically punctual). Soon after this tragedy, Pandion Capital is exposed as a Ponzi scheme; the courts and creditors take all the money; and Atti is suddenly a pauper and a pariah, finding out who his real friends are. But a maniac who blames the Foresters for his tortured life, not without reason, is out to kill even the second generation of them. This is truly biblical, or rather, classical Greek. Garish and fiendish taunts appear: Someone tries to poison Atti’s dog; his uncle is sent a case of poisoned wine; and his aunt gets a Gucci handbag with a dead bat inside. And Crane, a crazed scholar, sends riddling verses based on Greek mythology to Atti. There is finally a mad, white-knuckle chase at the family’s Maine compound with a fierce nor’easter thrown in, as Atti and his friends try to rescue a kidnapped woman from a killer’s dire clutches. Ried paints a vivid picture of Atti’s world, both before and after the disasters. After one early embarrassment, Atti feels “like a potted plant someone forgot to water.” But the author also shows Atti to be a real mensch who can take everything the world throws at him, resulting in a riveting survival story. And Atti has at least three true friends to see him through: Gabriel Oak, the caretaker of the family compound; Elle, Atti’s beautiful cousin and confederate; and his resourceful sidekick, Paolo Giaquinto, aka Q. So readers get a gripping mystery (Crane is not the only suspect in the misdeeds) along with a study in true and false friends and the corruptive power of great wealth, all set mostly on the fabled rockbound coast of Maine.

A well-plotted, enjoyable adventure.