The Prince of Risk: A Novel
Robert Astor, New York Stock Exchange CEO, was killed when the SUV he and two other powerful financiers were riding in lost control and careened across the White House lawn, forcing the Secret Service to open fire. Before he dies, Robert texts his son, Bobby, one word: Palantir. The text convinces Bobby (a hedge-fund mastermind) that the deaths weren’t accidental, and he digs into his father’s papers, struggling to decipher the threat posed by the apparently unrelated corporations Robert was researching. Meanwhile, Bobby’s fund is threatened when his high-stakes gamble on the yuan’s devaluation goes sideways. As he dodges an assassin, tries to save his fund, and searches for the answers Palantir holds, Bobby realizes that he’s entangled in a Chinese espionage plot targeting the U.S. economy. While the detection aspects of the plot don’t quite hold up, Reich skillfully anchors the story with a scarily realistic espionage premise, introduces a wealth of physical threats, and keeps it all moving at a breakneck pace. Economic espionage thrillers involving the Chinese have become a growing trend, and this one makes a solid addition to the field. --Christine Tran