As she enters her home she is assaulted and killed. Across the street an elderly neighbour is killed in his garden.
The police believe the neighbour, a retired Serbian Army colonel, was the target and Rachel was killed because she was a witness to his killing.
Janos Pach, Czech emigre and the head of a billion dollar private equity firm, is sure Rachel was the intended kill. He had asked her to check out the Launchpad Fund. being run by Hudson Ventures, which “helps countries and regions rebuild after natural disasters or wars”. A client, interested in expanding his “exposure in social investment vehicles”, was considering an investment.
Rachel’s initial analytical study had led her to believe Hudson Ventures was a Ponzi scheme. She wanted to interview Stephen Howland, the head of Hudson Ventures. Howland had a slippery past in Canada involving penny stocks and companies where there was fraud. He has managed to avoid prosecution.
Meanwhile in Haiti a civil engineer about to blow the whistle on projects where the money was not spent on rebuilding is murdered when he refuses a bribe.
Pach hires his son, Neil Walker, a private investigator who had spent several years in the RCMP in the Commercial Crimes unit.
Rachel’s sister, Carole, and her aunt, Isabelle, are bitter towards Neil from a past investigation and make it clear they resent his involvement.
Isabelle is the head of Bala Bay Financial, “Canada’s largest privately held financial services conglomerate”.
In Ottawa Carole is offered a position representing Canada at the G7 opposing new regulations on cross-border capital transfers. (The Canadian government is conservative ideologically and wants free flow of capital.) In return she wants the Federal Government to prevent Walker from investigating her.
Police around the world would love tougher requirements on the reporting of corporations moving money from nation to nation.
All the parties arrive in New York City where corporate money flows and government figures meet and international agencies interact. I sometimes forget Canada, as evidenced from its membership in the G7, is a major participant in international finance.
The Canadian finance minister meets with Paolo Santiago the head of Grupo Muxia an international design-build engineering company which “specializes in infrastructure projects in the Third World”. It regularly faces accusations of “bribery, corruption, sub-standard construction and often sheer theft”.
Thus the scene is set for a complex financial mystery. After reading several gritty police procedurals or works of noir it was a nice change to read a book involving high finance and murder.
Prentice makes an effort to set up the competing interests on a major issue of international finance but there is no real exploration of the positions of each side.
Can it be that Rachel was caught up in detecting corrupt international activities? Yet why kill her when investigations into her research are inevitable? I was happily ensconced on a crime fiction journey into “why”.
It is a rare modern thriller that does not have a conventional progressive position. It is hard to find a positive approach to conservative positions.
I enjoyed the book a lot. I do not usually talk about what a book could have been but many of my thoughts are what the plot could have been. Why was Rachel Murdered? reminded me a bit of the Elisabeth Salander series by Stieg Larsson especially with regard to the financial twists. I think a few issues kept it from being a very popular book. I would have appreciated more about the chosen villain. I think the secondary villain, Santiago, would have been a great primary instead of a bit character. He could have been the Richard "Dickie" Onslow Roper from The Night Manager by John Le Carre. The themes had the heft to be a saga but the book needed more depth and length to take the reader on a grand sweeping story. I would have liked a trilogy. And while it has enough violence to be a thriller there is a shortage of sex. I wish that were unimportant but it is a staple of modern thrillers. Lastly, the character who could have really carried the book was Rachel. Neil and Carole are interesting and Canadian “nice” but Rachel was riveting. Rachel had the ability to be the equivalent of Ava Lee in the series by Ian Hamilton.
This does sound interesting, Bill. As you say, it can be difficult to use a financial mystery as the basis for a mystery/thriller, but it sounds successful here. And it sounds as though one can learn, too, which I always like in a novel.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. It has such an intriguing premise and is successful but .....
DeleteSounds interesting. Financially motivated crimes can be good to read about, as long as the details of contracts and so on don't take over. Then it can be boring and convoluted.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am reading a Solomon, Lord and Lassiter book: Bum Deal. After reading serious murder mysteries like the excellent Scrublands, set in Australia and an excellent novel about Koreans in Japan, called Pachinko, and a gangster-type love story, November Road, I am happy to be laughing while I turn pages.
At the last page I read said, Lord is remembering a three-hour football game Solomon made her watch, and thinks, "Those are three hours of my life I'll never get back." Oh, lawyer banter, nothing like it in the hands of a good writer.
I'm laughing out loud at Lassiter at this point. A lawyer just had to write this.
ReplyDeleteKathy D.: Thanks for the comments. It was a good book that could have been a great book. Paul Levine has a knack for humour pushing but not breaking credibility. I thought you would enjoy Scrublands. I am glad you got a chance to read the book.
DeleteYes. I did like Scrublands, but the ending was so complicated that I could not repeat the entire resolution of the mysteries. There were so many and it got complex. But I could not put down the book.
ReplyDeleteKathy D.: Thanks for the comment. Brilliant it was in scope and writing.
DeleteYes, a brilliant mystery and writing. But do not quiz me on the resolution(s) and the entire complicated story. I still can't figure out the false identity part.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you must read "Bad Deal," a Lassiter, Solomon and Lord book by Paul Levine. I mentioned it earlier, but I've only had time to read a few pages at a time. And I'm reading the courtroom scenes, and they are hilarious. I find them almost as good as good chocolate, to be savored.
I wish my father could have read these books. He loved humor and also legal mysteries.
It's "Bum Deal," to be correct.
ReplyDeleteKathy D.: Thanks for the comment and recommendation. High praised indeed to "almost as good as chocolate".
ReplyDeleteHi Bill -
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your thoughtful review of my book Why was Rachel Murdered? I'm delighted that you enjoyed the story and flattered by your references to Stieg Larsson and Ian Hamilton.
My next novel, which explores international art fraud, is underway and I will keep your comments in mind.
All the best
Bill Prentice
Bill: Thanks for the comment. I was glad I read your first. I would like to read the second.
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