The silent oligarch

 by Chris Morgan Jones. This is a happy partner to the work of Deighton, Archer, and le Carre. Mysterious men, cryptic of speech and beautifully tailored, move through glittery settings seacoasts, grand hotels, swank neighborhoods carried on craftily understated prose that approaches cold poetry. Rows of massive buildings bullied all the leaves off the bare limes and left the trees cowering in the middle of the road. Ben Webster is a snoop employed by a London corporate espionage firm. His boss' client has hired the company to bring down a Kremlin functionary, the toadlike Malin, whose manipulation of Russia's oil industry is making him a trillionaire. Webster attempts to get at the toad through his dithering money launderer, Richard Lock. Reader identification is complete. We'd like to be Webster tough, smart but we know we're really more like Lock, not as bright and strong as we wish. Men are betrayed. Drugged. Kidnapped. Tossed off buildings. Downed by snipers. If the good guys win, it's at such a cost they're left wondering if they accomplished anything. They did. They were part of a first-class novel. --Booklist (Check Catalog)