Review: Deceit, Lies and Murder! Who Should You Trust?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 29, 2012
Given what is currently happening in Europe's banking industry, "The Banker" by Michael Drysdale,certainly is timely!  I am sure many investors in Greece, Spain and around the world who are seeing their investments disappear feel exactly like Mr. Strelnikov, who lost 4 billion in the collapse of NatScot. This oligarch wants his money back and is demanding retribution from Sir Phil Black, the ruthless, back-stabbing, bank director who had recommended that the bank invest heavily in US subprime mortgages. We all know what happened next!!  Problem is that Sir Phil feels little responsibility towards his investors and at least one of them may rectify that attitude.  But are they trying to kill him or make him pay up?  The government also wants a piece of him now that they consider him an embarrassment. Everybody, it seems, is out to get him. Is he just paranoid or should he be scared and run like a rabbit?If you enjoy a good spy novel that has some bumbling twits, reporters, and hired killers  working against  each other giving the story that edge of needed dark humour while at the same time, the master spies are planning the real events behind the scenes, then this book provides that interesting read. It is so full of layers,twists,turns and even some climbs that it will keep you reanalysing what you thought was going to happen next. I don't think anybody will predict the ending from many pages ahead. And what a great finale!!I had to read it this novel twice since I was so immersed in what was happening the first time & I was so anxious to move ahead with the plot, that I didn't get to enjoy Mr. Drysdale 's beautiful descriptive narrative of the regions.  Second time through I paid more attention to details such as the descriptions of locale, timely introduction and then the behaviours of the other characters and enjoyed the novel even more, discovering information I had missed in my excitement, the first time through. Whatever you do, don't cheat and read the ending or you will ruin it for yourself!  Never in a million years could I have predicted the exact path this novel takes.  With the hundreds of novels I read, that is a high compliment to this author.Not every novel is perfect and neither is this one.  So here goes: At times, as I mentioned earlier, I found parts predictable but just prior to the event not chapters before therefore I found that acceptable as it didn't detract from the story.  Mr. Michael Drysdale  is British, and obviously writing using British English.  I am only commenting because my Dad was British and therefore I grew up hearing many of the expressions written into this novel and being Canadian we also use the same grammatical & spelling formats albeit expressions differ.  I found some of the expressive use of the language awkward even for British English and wonder how this will be received in the North American market. In my first read, I ignored it since I always got the gist of what the author was intending to say, however, with my second read through, some of the grammatical awkwardness was more evident. Not enough to stop me from recommending this great gem of a contemporary spy novel but perhaps to nudge the author to consider another edit.  Overall, this is a worthwhile read and I am sure that any mystery/spy fan will not go wrong spending a few hours of escape with "The Banker" by Michael Drysdale.I received a complimentary copy of this book from BookRooster in exchange for an honest review.  I am not related nor friends with this author.