Review of "The Oligarch's Daughter: A Thriller" by Joseph Finder

Five years ago, Paul Brightman, a New York hedge fund manager, went on the run. Paul reinvented himself as Grant Anderson and became a boatbuilder in Derryfield, New Hampshire.



Grant found work in the fishing community, started dating a schoolteacher, and blended into the town - but always watched his back.



Paul's pursuers have now caught up with him, two men are dead, and Paul is a fugitive again - with $48,000, a parka, a backpack, an apple, and a KIND bar in his go-bag.





*****

Skip back six years, and Paul is a top analyst at Aquinnah Capital in Manhattan.



Aquinnah Capital buys a table at a fund raiser, and at the gala Paul meets a beautiful Russian woman called Tatyana Galkin.



Paul learned Russian in college, and he and Tatyana chat and become friendly. The couple begin to date, and Paul learns Tatyana is a photographer; lives in an artsy apartment in the East Village; and has a dog named Pushkin.





When Paul and Tatyana become serious, Paul meets Tatyana's family, and learns she's the daughter of the billionaire Russian oligarch Arkady Galkin, who lives in an ultra-luxurious Manhattan apartment with his wife Polina (Tatyana's stepmother).



Soon afterwards, Paul and Tatyana get engaged, and Paul accepts a job at Arkady's investment firm, AGF limited.



Paul becomes wary, however, because of the secretive atmosphere at AGF, and the constant surveillance by Eugene Frost and Andrei Berzin - Arkady's Russian security experts.



Paul and Tatyana marry, and Paul is happy at home.....



......but uneasy at work, where Paul becomes aware of financial hijinks, including insider trading, at AGF limited.



Around this time, FBI Special Agent Mark Addison asks Paul to spy on Arkady. Paul refuses at first, but then agrees.



(Note: This plot point is glaringly unrealistic. Paul has absolutely no training in espionage, yet pulls off stunts like a top CIA operative.)

At the behest of Special Agent Addison, Paul goes to a storage facility and copies data about something called 'Phantom' onto a flash drive, which leads to disaster.



This compels Paul to flee, with both Arkady's people AND the FBI after him. To hide, Paul becomes Grant Anderson in New Hampshire. Now - five years later - the Russians have found Paul, and he must escape all over again.



Luckily for Paul, he has superb outdoor skills, learned from his father Stan Brightman, a brilliant computer scientist who - decades ago - became a survivalist and moved into a forest hut.



When Paul was young, Stan would take him on excursions in the woods, where they'd have to forage for edible plants and eat whatever animals they caught, which was mostly squirrels and chipmunks.



The story alternates back and forth between the present - with Paul trying to evade various people pursuing him; and the past - before Paul becomes Grant Anderson. There are lots of twists and surprises, perhaps too many, because the convolutions are hard to follow.



Nevertheless, if you can suspend disbelief, this is an entertaining espionage/adventure thriller.

Rating: 3 stars