Review: Densely Detailed, Exceptional Authenticity
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2013
This book's description on amazon doesn't do justice to what is a revealing dive into the legal tangles involved in catching and convicting foreign money launderers in the US. Set in 1988, giving it a pre-cell phone, pre-9/11 and pre-Patriot Act feel, it revolves around an investigation by New York City prosecutors into the flow of drug money by Colombia's Cali cartel. The 80's were the heyday of the Colombian drug cartels and Thursday's List shines brightest when describing the money laundering activities and the agonizing work to find bank accounts, checks, couriers, and other links to the Colombian bad guys. Swept up in the churn is rookie attorney Dana Hargrove. Her best friend not only works in a bank being used by the cartels but is married to a bookish Colombian who thought he'd left his country's drug mess behind him long ago.The story starts with action and great atmospherics as Hargrove yawns her way through a shift as prosecutor at a dumpy NYC night court, complete with surly judge in a scene that put me in mind of a darker and more serious episode of the old TV sitcom Night Court. A bad smelling case, however, takes her out of the court rota and into a unit investigating financial crimes. The financial crimes colleagues are neither forthcoming nor trustworthy and although still young and making mistakes, Hargrove is savvy enough to realize she's being used. The suspense here isn't the whodunit variety or a complex thriller plot twist but turns on the question of how long the heroine and her best friend can survive being used by the system before the system catches the bad guys.Thursdays List requires the reader's full attention. The legal intricacies of tracking money are complex and dominate the first half while the reader lives inside the heads of Hargrove and her friend for much of the second. An added complication is the book's non-standard way of referring to characters that are variously called by their first names, last names, nicknames, or in some cases merely by job title. So stay alert as you follow Dana Hargrove through the money trail and hopefully into future legal dramas.