The Silent Oligarch, Christopher Morgan Jones
The Silent Oligarch, Christopher Morgan Jones
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The Silent Oligarch

Author: Christopher Morgan Jones

Narrator: Jason Culp

Unabridged: 11 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 01/19/2012

Synopsis

A London intelligence agent pursues a money launderer to expose the dealings of a shadowy Russian oligarch. In a world where national borders shrink to insignificance in the face of colossal wealth and corporate power, The Silent Oligarch offers a new kind of hero to combat a new kind of crime. Drawing on his decade of experience at the world's largest corporate intelligence firm-where the wealthy buy the justice they want and the silence they need-Chris Morgan Jones leads us down into the unvarnished realities of our time in the grand tradition of John le Carré. Bearing news from a world hidden behind closed doors, The Silent Oligarch effortlessly creates a new genre in its wake. Deep in the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources sits a nondescript bureaucrat named Konstantin Malin. He draws a nominal government salary but from his shabby office controls half the nation's oil industry, making him one of the most wealthy and feared men in Russia. His public face is Richard Lock, a hapless money launderer bound to Malin by marriage, complacency, and greed. Lock takes the proceeds of his master's corruption, washes them abroad, and invests them back in Russia in a secret business empire. He knows little about Malin's true affairs, but still he knows too much. Benjamin Webster is an investigator at a London corporate intelligence firm. Years before, as an idealistic young journalist in Russia, Webster saw a colleague murdered for asking too many hard questions of powerful people; her true killers have never been found. Hired to ruin Malin, Webster comes to realize that this shadowy figure might have ordered her gruesome death, and that this case may deliver the justice he has been seeking for a decade. As Webster peels back the layers of Malin's shell companies and criminal networks, Lock's colleagues begin dying mysteriously, police around the world start to investigate, and Malin begins to question his trust in his increasingly exposed frontman. Suddenly Lock is running for his life- though from Malin or Webster, the law or his own past, he couldn't say. Leading us into a world we can know little about, The Silent Oligarch is the brilliant overture of a major new literary talent.

About The Author

Christopher Morgan Jones worked for 11 years at the world’s largest business intelligence agency and has advised Middle Eastern governments, Russian oligarchs, New York banks, London hedge funds, and African mining companies. The author of The Silent Oligarch and The Jackal's Share, he lives in London.Jason Culp has been featured on television in Days of Our Lives and General Hospital and in the cult film Skinheads. His roles in regional theater include Trigorin in The Seagull. He has been an audiobook performer for 13 years. He lives in New York City and is currently finishing work on a memoir.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jaden on July 09, 2012

I would say THE SILENT OLIGARCH is an excellent first novel, except that it doesn't have the feel of a first novel. It's much better than that. Author Chris Morgan Jones spent eleven years working for the world's leading business intelligence agency, and his in-depth knowledge of corporate espionage......more

Goodreads review by Klaas on July 18, 2021

A slow start, very slow, but this spy thriller eventually pays off. The first part is really a bit boring, which isn't completely surprising as it mainly deals with financial deals and corruption. The latter part is packed with spy action, which is more exciting obviously. (I picked the Dutch transla......more

Goodreads review by Orchid on January 29, 2012

First Sentence: "High in the air Webster watches the unbroken desert flow past, a deep copper red in the dawn, the sand ridged like waves rolling down toward the south." What me to want to read The Silent Oligarch was the premise of a good old-fashion mystery/thriller. Did it make the cut, in that res......more

Goodreads review by Gerald on July 13, 2011

John Le Carré casts a long shadow. If not the originator of espionage novels, he has taken the genre to a challenging new level. Books by other authors regularly emerge invoking the Le Carré name as recommendation. Very few - perhaps Alan Furst and Joseph Kanon - justify the claim. But now here is a......more

Goodreads review by Richard on May 25, 2012

This is the first novel written by Mr. Jones, following an 11-year career working "at the world's largest business intelligence agency." He has drawn heavily on his experiences advising Middle Eastern governments, Russian oligarchs, New York banks, London hedge funds, and African mining companies. T......more

Quotes

"From Chris Morgan Jones, an absolutely terrific novel. It''s about international intrigue--but the real deal. The Silent Oligarch is beautifully written, clean and terse, but you won''t notice, because you''ll be reading just as fast as you can. Very highly recommended, and you''ll want more."
— Alan Furst, author of SPIES OF THE BALKAN and NIGHT SOLDIERS

"A beautifully written thriller about how the power of money has been replacing the power of the state in the former Soviet Union, and how the West is no closer to understanding the way things work there than we ever were... The Silent Oligarch is a smashing debut that will leave most readers anxious to follow Webster on his next assignment."
— CONNECTICUT POST

“An understated debut that carries a special resonance in the wake of Putin’s bare-knuckled presidential victory. The plot hinges on three men -- one bad, one good and one gutless -- whose work revolves around the billions of dollars and other assets that slither in and out of opaque jurisdictions stretching from the Cayman Islands to Vanuatu. Like the spies in a John le Carre novel, they are surprisingly plausible… Jones handles the large cast of characters and shifting venues with grace.”
— BLOOMBERG

“This is a happy partner to the work of Deighton, Archer, and le Carré. Mysterious men, cryptic of speech and beautifully tailored, move through glittery settings—seacoasts, grand hotels, swank neighborhoods—carried on craftily understated prose that approaches cold poetry… Men are betrayed. Drugged. Kidnapped. Tossed off buildings. Downed by snipers. If the good guys win, it’s at such a cost they’re left wondering if they accomplished anything. They did. They were part of a first-class novel."
— BOOKLIST (starred)

"Like the icy eastern winter that seeps through the pages of his novel, Jones's prose is clean and cold, crisp and ominous. In its intelligence, its crispness, its refusal to recognise anything other than shades of grey, there are undoubtedly resonances of Le Carré here. But [The Silent Oligarch] is too good to need the publishing shorthand for "classy thriller": this is a debut that definitely stands on its own merits."
— THE GUARDIAN (UK)

Jones weaves an engaging narrative that... confronts the dilemma of the west’s engagement with dubious characters and companies.
— THE FINANCIAL TIMES

“A story of quiet suspense and international espionage…Jones does a nice job of keeping the focus on the people involved rather than the minutiae of corporate espionage, and his pace is leisurely but never slow.”
— THE WASHINGTON POST

"Fans of thrillers, especially those set in present-day Russia, will welcome the supernova that has burst onto the spy and suspense scene . . With a mysterious, complex plot and terrific local color, this novel resonates to the pounding heartbeats of the boldly drawn main characters. John le Carré, Martin Cruz Smith, and Brent Ghelfi will be inching over in the book display so readers in search of erudite, elegant international intrigue can spot the newcomer."
— LIBRARY JOURNAL

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