The Prince of Risk: A Novel Author: Visit Amazon's Christopher Reich Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0385535066 | Format: EPUB
The Prince of Risk: A Novel Description
From Booklist
Robert Astor, New York Stock Exchange CEO, was killed when the SUV he and two other powerful financiers were riding in lost control and careened across the White House lawn, forcing the Secret Service to open fire. Before he dies, Robert texts his son, Bobby, one word: Palantir. The text convinces Bobby (a hedge-fund mastermind) that the deaths weren’t accidental, and he digs into his father’s papers, struggling to decipher the threat posed by the apparently unrelated corporations Robert was researching. Meanwhile, Bobby’s fund is threatened when his high-stakes gamble on the yuan’s devaluation goes sideways. As he dodges an assassin, tries to save his fund, and searches for the answers Palantir holds, Bobby realizes that he’s entangled in a Chinese espionage plot targeting the U.S. economy. While the detection aspects of the plot don’t quite hold up, Reich skillfully anchors the story with a scarily realistic espionage premise, introduces a wealth of physical threats, and keeps it all moving at a breakneck pace. Economic espionage thrillers involving the Chinese have become a growing trend, and this one makes a solid addition to the field. --Christine Tran
Review
“The Prince of Risk is a terrific thriller, written by a guy who knows what he's doing. Check it out. I think you'll love it.”
--Steve Berry
"The Prince of Risk will knock your socks off. Christopher Reich seamlessly weaves the high-stakes world of hedge funds and international terrorism into a frightening, big-time thriller that pulls you into his world and rockets ahead like a runaway train. Reich knows how to deliver, and does."
--Robert Crais
"At the moment I'm reading a great new financial thriller by Christopher Reich, The Prince of Risk. One thing Doug [Preston] and I love to do in our books is come up with scary but credible near-future scenarios--and crafting just such scenarios is a talent Reich has in spades.”
--Lincoln Child
Critical Raves for NUMBERED ACCOUNT:
“A smart and sophisticated thriller.”
– The New York Times
“Breakneck speed.”
– The Wall Street Journal
“Tension crackles like crisp new banknotes.”
– People
“A brilliant thriller.”
– James Patterson
“Taut, sophisticated….The inner sanctum of Swiss banking.”
– Nelson DeMille
“Gripping.”
– Chicago Tribune
See all Editorial Reviews
- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (December 3, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385535066
- ISBN-13: 978-0385535069
- Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
This is a conventional thriller about a foreign plot to destroy the US financial system, by supervillains who monitor every form of communication. Paper Gold meets The Watchmen. The writing is smooth and professional, except for the author's fondness for dangling modifiers, such as, "Beaufoy spun and shot the policeman standing behind him in the head." He does get credit for predicting correctly that if your car goes out of control near the White House, it will be riddled with bullets no matter who's in it, and the killers will be celebrated for the massacre. There's nothing new here, but many thriller fans looking for something to pass time on an airplane ride will find it acceptable. For them, this is a three-star book.
For my part, however, it was less satisfactory. I am aware that my criticisms will seem like nitpicking to most people. If you read your thrillers for broad action strokes rather than details, you should probably rely on other reviewers.
I like my thrillers tight, this one is filled with inconsistencies. Two good guys are aware that the bad guys are listening to their telephone call, and have active assassins tracking them down. They need to agree on a place to meet. It happens they both know Morse code, so one of them taps out the location. Clever, and it's plausible this might delay even supervillains with massive surveillance teams. If none of the bad guys had been Eagle scouts it might have taken them ten minutes to find a website to decode it.
A conspiracy is afoot and the only (good) people who know about it are the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange. Until they die. Just before their car explodes on the White House lawn, the head of the NYSE texts the word Palantir to his estranged son, hedge fund master Bobby Astor, whose ex-wife, Alex Forza, happens to be an FBI agent. Astor has no idea what Palantir means, but he is determined to find out. The conspirators, of course, are aware of the text, knowledge that puts Astor's life in peril. In the meantime, Astor has made a bet that Chinese currency will be devalued, a gamble that places him in financial peril, to the extent of losing 400 million dollars.
Global conspiracies are plentiful and far-reaching in the word of thrillers. This one involves electronic surveillance of 57,000 influential people (mostly in government and business). Impressive but credible, given the resources of the conspiracy's backers. Is the conspiracy farfetched? In some respects, yes, but no more farfetched than is common in modern thrillers. Apart from one scene at the end, nothing about the story made me unwilling to suspend my disbelief, in part because Reich includes convincing detail about the conspiracy's design. Of course, a reader who is more knowledgeable about software or the mechanics of Wall Street financial transactions might not be as easily convinced as I was. And even to the extent that I was unconvinced, the story is so fun that I easily overcame my skepticism.
The story features -- wait for it -- a warrior monk. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting a warrior monk to show up on Wall Street, but Reich somehow makes it work.
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