Numbered Account
A Novel
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A man seeking justice for the murder of his father becomes entangled in a conspiracy larger than he thought possible in this “compelling, suspenseful, [and] fast-paced” (San Francisco Chronicle) financial thriller.
“A brilliant thriller that holds you in a vise grip from its first page to its last.”—James Patterson
A job he shouldn't have taken. A woman he shouldn't have loved. A secret he shouldn't expose . . . if he wants to live.
Nick Neumann has it all: a Harvard degree, a beautiful fiancée, a star-making Wall Street career. But behind the dazzling veneer of his golden boy exterior is a man haunted by the brutal killing of his father seventeen years before.
Now chilling new evidence has implicated his father's employer, the United Swiss Bank, in the crime. Nick doesn't know how. Or why. But he has a plan to find out: move to Zurich. Work for the same bank. Follow in his father's footsteps. Look for the same secrets . . . and uncover something so shocking, so unexpected, justice may not be enough.
For as a circle of treachery tightens around him, as a woman with secrets of her own enters his life, Nick makes another chilling discovery. Not just about his father but about himself. And how far he's willing to go to find out what happened seventeen years before—when a man died and a conspiracy was born.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Swiss banking industry has been taking some hard hits in the headlines recently, and it doesn't fare any better in this excellent debut thriller of finance and international intrigue. When Nicholas Neumann gives up his fiancee and a fast-track job at Morgan Stanley to take a position at his late father's bank (and, if possible, to learn the truth behind his father's unsolved murder), he soon discovers that the bank is being used for political ends by a money-laundering suspect known only as the Pasha. The DEA wants the bank to help it bust the Pasha; as a result, Neumann is forced to choose between betraying his country or his employer. Perhaps to compensate for the weakness of the mystery surrounding the murder of Neumann's father, Reich throws in a smorgasbord of subplots: a hostile takeover from a rival bank; an over-the-top DEA agent who wants the Pasha taken down; an upcoming act of Middle Eastern terrorism; not to mention the Russian nuclear weapon that seems to be for sale in just about every post-Cold War thriller. To Reich's credit, he puts an original spin on the equally obligatory romantic subplot, which in this case reinforces the novel's focus on fiscal skullduggery. Despite the many story lines and a formulaic setup and finale, Reich has written a gripping tale of murder, money and immorality. Foreign rights sold in the U.K., France, Japan, Germany, Spain, Holland, Italy, Norway and Finland; $300,00 ad/promo; BDD audio; author tour. FYI: Reich worked at a Swiss bank for eight years.
