Book Review: Hunted by the FBI and Russian Oligarch, a hedge fund manager flees into the wilderness
Paul Brightman, a former hedge fund manager, has been keeping a low profile, changing his name to Grant Anderson and making a modest living as a boat builder in a small New Hampshire town. But Paul fears it's only a matter of time before he's found.
The FBI is hunting him. The CIA would like a word. And a wealthy Russian oligarch has put a price on his head. One of the oligarch's thugs is the first to find him. Barely escaping with his life, he flees into the northern New England wilderness.
Five years earlier, when Paul was working on Wall Street, he fell in love with and subsequently married a beautiful photographer named Tatanya, unaware at first that her father was a Russian oligarch with ties to the Kremlin.
In 'The Oligarch's Daughter,' his 17th thriller, Joseph Finder alternates two suspenseful timelines — the present as Paul struggles to stay alive and the recent past in which we learn how he got into this fix in the first place.
In the former, he finds himself relying on skills he absorbed from his estranged father, a reclusive survivalist living off the grid in the wilds of the Allegheny Mountains.
In the latter, he accepts his new father-in-law's offer of a job, gets pressured to make illegal investments based on inside information, and becomes alarmed when two of his co-workers disappear. The FBI recruits him, he gets caught spying, and he has to run for his life.
With a master's degree in Russian studies and his membership in the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Finder is very much at home with this tale of what some are now calling the new cold war. The writing is tight, the suspense is unrelenting, and the romance between Paul and Tatanya is well handled as well.
The plot is complex, even by thriller standards, but the author handles it so well that the reader is unlikely to get lost. However, it has so many twists and surprises that he might have been better served by eliminating a couple of them.
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Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including 'The Dread Line.'
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AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews
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Horrified and enraged Xale Chartier was heading to a downtown parking structure when he saw first responders lining 13th Street on Sunday afternoon. His first thought was that there was some kind of mass-casualty incident. By the time Chartier got to the courthouse, a few people were still being treated by paramedics and he could see an oily residue on the ground, along with flags and shoes scattered nearby, he said. 'It was a very grim and unsettling scene,' Chartier said. 'I grew up in Boulder and I've never experienced anything quite like that.' Alexandra Posnack, 19, was at her Boulder home about five minutes away from Pearl Street when friends at the scene started texting her that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail at the group holding the weekly demonstration calling for the release of Israeli hostages. 'I'm horrified and I'm also enraged, and I will be back here next week to protest with my big-ass Israeli flag,' she said. Brandon Hoover, 28, said the attack doesn't seem real. He and his girlfriend were walking down Pearl Street when suddenly there were flames and 'the smell of flesh,' he said. 'I thought, 'Holy crap, that could have been any one of us on Pearl Street,'' Hoover said. '…Once you see something that traumatic, it's going to stick with you.' Hours later, the scene was still being swept by hazmat, canine and bomb disposal teams, Redfearn, the Boulder police chief, said. Parts of Pearl Street, including the 1200 through 1500 blocks, had been evacuated. The order remained in effect along the Pearl Street corridor from Broadway to 15th Street and from Lawry Lane to Spruce Street as of 8:11 p.m. That section of the mall remained closed to the public as police cleared the area and investigated a 'vehicle of interest,' Redfearn said. Boulder resident Henry Bonn-Elchones, 18, was downtown getting lunch with friends when he saw smoke and burn marks and an Israeli flag on the ground by the courthouse. He never heard an explosion. But he said first responders and law enforcement swarmed the area and later watched as two older women were loaded into ambulances. 'Hate-filled acts' Local political leaders condemned the attack on Sunday. 'Hate-filled acts of any kind are unacceptable,' Polis said in a statement on social media. 'While details emerge, the state works with local and federal law enforcement to support this investigation.' U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, who represents Boulder in Congress, called for Americans to stop the spread of antisemitism. 'Tonight, as many prepare to mark the Shavuot holiday, our Jewish community has been subjected to yet another brutal and horrific act of violence,' said the congressman, whose district includes Boulder. 'We stand with the Jewish community — today and always — and will be united in supporting the victims and their families, and to redoubling our efforts to stop antisemitism.' Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser wrote in a statement that the attack appears to be a hate crime and that he had offered his office's support to Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty. 'People may have differing views about world events and the Israeli-Hamas conflict, but violence is never the answer to settling differences,' he wrote. '… We all have the right to peaceably assemble and the freedom to speak our views. But these violent acts — which are becoming more frequent, brazen, and closer to home — must stop and those who commit these horrific acts must be fully held to account.' ___ © 2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
