Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
Joe Finder’s latest novel is a literary throwback to the 1970s cold war espionage-action thriller but given a high-tech upgrade to pull it into our contemporary times. Ostensibly a cat and mouse chase that traverses trade-craft, technology, time and terrain, it is greater than the sum of its parts because it makes the reader ponder on what it takes to vanish and escape ‘the grid’.
The chase commences in New England, when boat-builder Grant Anderson takes a client out on a sea fishing trip. Little is as it appears, for the client is actually a hired assassin contracted to eliminate Anderson. It is revealed that Grant Anderson is a non-de-plume for Paul Brightman, a New Yorker who vanished many years ago. It seems that Paul Brightman’s cover is blown.
After the assassin is violently despatched [via a harpoon gun to the face] and tossed overboard, Brightman realises he’s no longer safe concealed as the boat-builder Anderson, so escapes into the mountains of New Hampshire.
The author slowly peels back the narrative onion-skins to reveal Brightman’s past in New York’s Wall Street; and his relationship with Tatyana Galkin – who eponymously gives the novel its anchor. There is a whirlwind romance, and despite warnings, Paul marries Tatyana. It appears that his father-inlLaw is actually Russian oligarch Arkady Galkin, and to make matters more interesting, he actually starts to help with the Oligarch’s investments.
I was reminded by an earlier work by Finder —both his political thrillers involving Russia as well one of my all-time favourite novels — his techno-thriller Paranoia. A Faustian pact of sorts is offered by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], for Brightman to investigate the Oligarch’s finances for ties to Russia’s Kremlin.
And so hangs the guts of the novel, because there follows dead bodies, violence and intrigue as the narrative road veers dangerously from New York, New England, Moscow, Pennsylvania and back. Danger tracks the protagonist both from the high-tech city of Manhattan to the rural edges of small-town America. The added twist Finder sprinkles into the pot is the ratcheting of time, as his protagonist Paul Brightman discovers in the warnings of an impatiently ticking clock.
Like thriller writers Robert Ludlum or Tom Clancy - Finder’s Oligarch’s Daughter appears more plot-driven, than character-focused. However, beneath the surface lurk secondary figures such as Brightman’s estranged father Stan, and former CIA Asset Geraldine Dempsey who add depth and poignancy to the narrative as they illustrate how narrow the line between genius and madness truly is.
Highly recommended for readers of twenty-first century espionage-action fiction, but watch out for the twists as little is what it seems, for Brightman’s journey will make the reader question the route to safety in a world that constantly observes every movement of every person and every dollar and rouble.
