The Printed Page

• My rating: OK. For all the reasons I loved Mr. Gore’s first book, Final Target, I was disappointed with Absolute Risk. After finishing Final Target I was very excited to start Absolute Risk because I thought I’d be in for another wild ride. Mr. Gore’s story lines give readers money trails, deceitful politicians and corrupt governments all twisted up and tangled. Its Graham Gage’s job as an international investigator to pull the strings that untie the knots. I felt Graham was much more vested in seeing justice done in Final Target as his closest friend is clinging to life in a hospital the target of a vast money laundering scheme involving the sale of advanced military technology. In Absolute Risk Graham Gage’s wife Faith plays a part in the whole messy affair but it doesn’t take center stage therefore the tension of having to be a knight in shining armour coming to save the day isn’t nearly as high pitched. And honestly Mr. Gore lost me a number of times when the story line came to economic theory. While Absolute Risk is very relevant given the current global economic crisis I don’t want to feel like I’m once again suffering through my college level economics classes. What I really want to be doing is racing around the globe chasing down the supremely bad guys in a high-stakes, fast-paced thriller. I have a feeling readers will be meeting up once again with Graham Gage in another international adventure so I’ll give him one more chance.
• New-to-me author: No
• Would I read more from this author: Probably

Title: Absolute Risk

Author/web site: Steven Gore

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

Publication date & page count: September ’10 & 351 pages

An FBI Agent, disgraced and dead. A Muslim economist, deported from the US and tortured. The world’s largest hedge fund, secreted off shore. A Federal Reserve Chairman who suspects a dangerous connection among them. And private investigator Graham Gage, to whom he turns to learn the truth. From New York to Boston to Marseilles to Washington DC, Gage races to expose a economic terrorism conspiracy against the United States, his heart burdened and his work complicated by an uprising in western China in which his wife is caught, by an indecisive Acting US President under the influence of a politically powerful, but increasingly delusional evangelical minister, by ruthless and double dealing Chinese business leaders, and by a PLA general gripping the largest army in the world with one hand, and Gage’s wife in the other.

Underlying each plot turn are questions about the vulnerability of the debt burdened US economy, the use of mathematical financial models, market manipulation and insider trading, the use of rendition and torture, US corporate complicity in foreign corruption, and America’s commitment to its own values.

Comments are closed.