The Oligarch's Daughter
A Novel
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4.3 • 442 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"Any new novel by Joseph Finder is a ticket to reading pleasure, and this one is hands down his best ever."—Stephen King
"This is Finder at his finest—a perfect everyman-in-peril story, first building an ominous drumbeat of menace, then exploding in action and intrigue and triumph. As good as it gets."—Lee Child
From the New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire, a breakneck thriller that marries the dynastic opulence of Succession with the tense and disorienting spycraft of The Americans.
Paul Brightman is a man on the run, living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who can seemingly predict his every move.
Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer named Tatyana—unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several U.S. intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government.
Rivaling the classic spy novels of the Cold War, The Oligarch’s Daughter is built for the frightening world we live in now.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A promising financier discovers that sometimes meeting your future in-laws can be deadly in this exhilarating thriller. Hedge fund manager Paul Brightman thought he met the perfect woman when he bumped into Tatyana at a charity gala, yet his dream turned into a nightmare when he decided to go into business with her father, a shady Russian businessman. Now, six years later, Paul is in hiding, living under an assumed name and working as an under-the-table shipbuilder, when the past he was hiding from finally catches up with him. The Oligarch’s Daughter starts with a bang and doesn’t let up as Paul is forced to rely on his wits to survive a life-or-death chase through the New England backwoods. We loved how author Joseph Finder balances breathtaking action with flashbacks of Paul’s romance and engagement to Tatyana and the clever financial tricks that eventually get him into hot water. The Oligarch’s Daughter is a perfect pick for people who love smart thrillers that don’t skimp on the action.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Finder (the Nick Heller series) delivers a fitfully arresting but hard-to-swallow thriller about an investment analyst whose life gets turned upside down after he marries a free-spirited artist. The overstuffed plot proceeds along two main tracks: in the present, Paul Brightman has shed his identity and become Grant Anderson, a New Hampshire boat builder, only to be forced on the run after a hit man tries to kill him. Flashbacks reveal how, six years earlier, Brightman left his career on Wall Street after meeting photographer Tatyana Galkin to work for her wealthy father's shady investment company. Soon, Brightman realizes something nearly every reader will clock immediately: that he is working for an elaborate criminal organization with ties to the Kremlin. Though the plot generates some real suspense as Brightman attempts to escape the Russians using skills he learned from his paranoid, off-the-grid father, its momentum is hampered by too much backstory and too many fawning descriptions of the Galkins' homes and luxury goods. An over-the-top deus ex machina at the climax doesn't help matters. This is a misfire.
Customer Reviews
Exciting and easy to read
Not a fan of books which jump back and forth over years as this one does, but the story still makes it worth reading.
Strong start, then goes downhill
For the first 1/3 of the book, I thought it was going to be a great read. Around the time the protagonist travels to Moscow it starts to unravel: inconsistencies, unreasonable scenarios/decisions that don’t fit with the character’s personality, huge plot holes in “tradecraft” that are unexplained, characters that are so poorly cobbled together that their pedigree is just comical. By chapter 101 the book had reached a tin foil hat crescendo of implausibility, and I couldn’t continue. This is only the second book ever that I haven’t finished. Would not recommend.
Preposterous
Totally unbelievable, absurd in every sense of the word.