0 of 0 copies available
Wait time: Not available
The explosion that shatters the smart Parisian apartment reverberates around the globe. In an instant, a suspected terrorist is dead and half a million dollars has vanished. Within days, the CIA is certain it has found a connection between the dead man and a planned terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Determined to avert another 9/11, they have assembled an elite counterterrorist task force, code name: Blood Money. Its mission: to follow the money trail. Its secret weapon: forensic accountant Adam Chapel. A man who trusts numbers more than people, Chapel has his own reasons for wanting to get the job done— four of his colleagues were killed in the Paris blast. Now Chapel is thrust back into the line of fire when he teams up with British intelligence agent Sarah Churchill. The two are assigned to hunt down a shadowy mastermind who is moving vast sums of money from country to country, from bank to bank, leaving no tracks—as he prepares for an Armaggedon of his own devising.
As Chapel follows a disappearing money trail from Paris to Munich to the deserts of Saudi Arabia, Sarah uses her elite training to stalk the “shadow” and his elusive network. Meanwhile, their quarry is auditing their every move, laying a twisting trail of false clues and shocking surprises. With the clock ticking down, soon Chapel and Sarah have only days, hours, minutes to avert disaster as a master terrorist plots to unleash the first strike in a brilliantly orchestrated conspiracy—with an almost unimaginable goal.
Hurtling us from the winding alleys of Pakistan to the elite banking houses of Europe, The Devil’s Banker creates an adrenaline-fueled world where following the money has never been more dangerous, and evil has never been harder to unmask.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Christopher Reich's The Prince of Risk.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
August 26, 2003 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780440334545
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780440334545
- File size: 565 KB
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
July 28, 2003
Reich (The Numbered Account; The Runner; The First Billion) returns to the stratospheric heights of international finance in this complicated novel of terrorist intrigue. Mild-mannered forensic accountant Adam Chapel revels in his first field mission, as he follows the tangled trail of a terrorist money transfer. Just as he's set to make an arrest, the suspect detonates a bomb that kills four of Chapel's fellow investigators. Injured in the blast but undeterred, Chapel teams up with Sarah Churchill, a beautiful spy of uncertain affiliation, to hunt down the bomber's secret organization. The shadowy association called the Hijira is funded in part by the elusive genius financier Marc Gabriel, who is engaged in funneling vast sums of money through legitimate and clandestine financial markets to fund Hijira's master plan to destroy the very heart of the American political establishment. Reich's numerous characters can be difficult to keep straight, as can the acronymic organizations they belong to, leading to sentences on the order of: "Run the name through the CBRS. Check for SARs and CTRs" and "OFAC called the White House. The White House called FTAT to confirm that OFAC's IEEPA request was legit...." Readers may scratch their heads in confusion as they wade through the alphabet soup, but those who persevere will receive an advanced education in the secret world of financial deviltry on the grandest of scales. Reich has a lot of fascinating financial lore to pass along, all of which goes down easily as the fast-paced plotting and relentless action speed the reader over the bumpy parts and into a satisfyingly gripping and informative read. (Aug. 26)Forecast:Reich, whose years of work in a Swiss bank lend his financial thrillers real-world authenticity, has received lackluster reviews since his debut novel,
The Numbered Account. Look for this one to do better than his last several outings, though bestseller status is still uncertain. -
May 15, 2003
If you want to track down terrorists, you need to track down their money. Which is exactly what the CIA and British intelligence intend to do here.Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-
August 1, 2003
Reich's forte, describing the world of high finance, is amply demonstrated in this acronym-laden, international thriller. Forensic accountant Adam Chapel and British agent Sarah Churchill find themselves assigned to "Blood Money," a Treasury Department task force. Their goal is to track down members of a terrorist group called Hijira. The terrorists, financed in part by $500,000 funneled from a German bank to a Paris jeweler, aim to carry out a major attack in the United States. To ferret out the mastermind, Adam and Sarah follow the group's complicated money trail, while a traitor in their midst shadows them at every turn. Reich reveals a wealth of details regarding money laundering and the U.S. government's capabilities and resources to counter unlawful financial transactions, but the novel itself, with a plot that hugs today's headlines, plods workmanlike and with little suspense to a conclusion that lacks dramatic intensity. A tepid, almost nonexistent romance and characters who fail to stir the reader's emotions all contribute to a disappointing read. Lacking the verve of Reich's best-selling Numbered Account, this is recommended only for larger public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/03.]-Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, TucsonCopyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-