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Ben Webster is an ex-journalist turned corporate intelligence investigator. His company, Ikertu, is hired to go after Konstantin Malin, one of the biggest players in the world of international financial intrigue. However, Malin is not an easy target. A high-level Russian minister, his connections to vast global corruption schemes are entirely behind the scenes. He is the fabulously wealthy silent oligarch of the book's title, and at first it seems unlikely that any trail of money and corporate holdings will implicate him in any way. Before we are introduced to this plotline, however, the book opens with a chapter that at first seems unrelated. It takes place ten years in the past, and recounts Webster's trip with a fearless Russian journalist named Inessa to uncover some criminal pollution in a Russian factory town. Their foray into areas that the government would like to keep hidden results in tragedy, and Webster is haunted by the fact that he never found out who was to blame. In the present, Webster discovers that Malin's front man, Richard Locke, is vulnerable. Locke steadily loses his sense of who he is and what he is doing as the investigations into his corporate dealings progress. Although he is a millionaire in his own right, he is wholly owned by Malin and cannot do as he pleases. Webster finds Locke and tries to enlist him in the effort to bring down Malin—whom he is beginning to suspect may have ordered Inessa's murder. Or perhaps not. The murkiness of post-Soviet power and secrecy is everywhere apparent in this thriller, and one has the sense at the end that if anything is really known it is because the people who control this knowledge want it to be known. And in that case, can it be trusted? This is an odd but thoroughly engrossing thriller. From the start, almost all of the players and moves seem pretty much established. Except for some chilling intimations at the end, there are no big surprises, yet the book steadily holds your interest. It does so through an almost cinematic attention to moment-to-moment detail and description. As the situations become increasingly tense, the writing mesmerizes the reader. This is true even though the villains do not seem particularly evil, nor does Webster, as the good guy, seem especially smart or strong or heroic. Both Webster and Locke only want to go back to the dailiness of their family life. However, the heavy sense of Russian corruption and lack of accountability that seem to be inherent in the structure of this government shadow the action, adding a continuous sense of tension and suspense for the reader. Anne Corey is a writer, poet, teacher and botanical artist in New York's Hudson Valley.
Reviewed by Anne Corey, January 2012
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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