Wednesday, September 5, 2012

FREE TO TRADE by Michael Ridpath

Finished Tu 9/4/12

A very tepid murder mystery which is set in the high-pressure world of the London Bond Market. I expected to get some kind of insight into the workings of global financial markets, but came away with little new information, and the nefarious incidents in the novel were cluttered with very predictable 'red herrings' and fairly obvious villains.

Paul Murray is an ex-Olympic runner and works for London investment traders, De Jong & Co. He uncovers a very byzantine, complicated, and possibly illegal bond deal shortly after one of his co-workers, Debbie Chater, dies in an accident/murder/or suicide. He travels to New York and Phoenix to conferences, and tries to uncover information about the millions lost on this bond trade, and to try to determine what happened to Debbie.

Although the Bond Market setting for this novel is a fresh idea, the construction, writing, and story-line has been done before with more pleasing results. Now, Michael Ridpath sets his novels in Scandinavia, and has completely departed from the financial world, and I read his novel, WHERE THE SHADOWS LIE, and I really enjoyed it. Maybe he's found his niche.

My notes:

Hamilton, Murray's boss at De Jong arranged the deal, killed Chater. He's ruthless and cares only about 'deals'. Murray is able to recover the money that the firm would have lost through a series of transactions that were almost too complicated to follow.

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