Shadowy world of finance
THE BANKER’S WIFE Christina Alger Loot.co.za (R367) Penguin Random House
ANNABEL Lerner is married to a banker, and on the surface it appears she has it all. A gorgeous apartment in Geneva, the ability to buy whatever she likes, but there are downsides to this seemingly fabulous existence.
Christina Alger is a very clever writer and when we meet Annabel, she is waiting for her husband to come home so that they can go to a work function. She is wearing a pair of killer heels, the type of shoe that screams money and hurts your feet; it’s an excellent device for introducing the ambivalence Annabel feels about her life in Geneva.
She and her husband Matthew have moved to Geneva to build up a nest-egg so that they can return to the US and settle down in the house of their dreams.
But, it all falls apart when Matthew does not come home on time, and instead she answers the door to two aviation investigators.
At the same time we meet American journalist Marina Tourneau who is on a rare holiday in Paris with her fiancé Grant. Grant is the son of a wealthy man who has aspirations to become the next president of the US. Marina is angry when her mentor at the magazine she works for contacts her and asks her to pick up a USB from a contact in Paris.
The plot in this thrilling novel about financial fraud and the power of the super-rich – and the lengths they will go to protecting their positions – is well-handled throughout the novel.
Alger is able to sustain a narrative with a credible plot as two women and a few good men set out to prove that massive fraud has been committed and that people have died in their attempt to prove it.
Her characters ring true and the emotional toll it exerts in their respective efforts to evade people who want to kill them, while investigating the shadowy world of international finance, does not slow down the plot, but rather gives it deeper resonance.
She also cleverly smashes some stereotypes in this book, the woman who dies with Matthew in what appears to be a plane crash is related to a notorious Middle Eastern despot, but she is a good person and trying to extricate herself from her relationship with her family.
The man Annabel turns to in London to protect a secret is a Muslim – clever ways to show evil has no statehood or culture. It is just evil; often the people who look the cleanest are the most dangerous.
There are a number of twists and turns in this novel, and just when you think that you have come to the end of the possible red herrings, another one turns up. This could be annoying in the hands of a less skilled author but Alger pulls it off. It’s also a love story about four couples. A compulsively good read.