high finance

Buried Secrets opens much like a standard-issue detective novel, with Nick Heller approached by an old friend to investigate the mysterious disappearance of an old friend’s daughter. Heller is not a PI, really, but, well . . . a sort of private spy who just happens to be a former Special Forces soldier with connections in the FBI and other, unnamed federal agencies. But this is no standard-issue novel about corporate espionage. It’s a thriller about high finance.

This gradually becomes clear. As Heller searches for Alexa, the pretty teenaged daughter of hedge fund billionaire Marcus Marshall, he soon finds himself enmeshed in a deadly game involving international criminal forces and probably the Russian regime to boot. Along the way, Heller rekindles an old love affair that seems to suggest a partnership in future stories.

Buried Secrets, like all the other Joseph Finder novels I’ve read, is a cut or two above other thrillers — in its intricate plotting, its in-depth characterizations, and its hard-hitting writing.

Buried Secrets is the second of Joseph Finder’s Nick Heller novels and his tenth overall. His books are all thrillers set in the world of business and finance. However, Finder first gained notice as a graduate student in Russian affairs at Harvard in the early 1980s when he wrote an expose about the controversial American oilman Armand Hammer, tieing him to the Kremlin. Though Hammer threatened to sue for libel, he never did, and the opening of the KGB files years later confirmed Finder’s assertions. Hammer, who was close to Richard Nixon, was effectively a KGB agent.

Buried Secrets (Nick Heller #2) by Joseph Finder (2011) ★★★★☆

For related reading

I’ve reviewed many other books by the same author at Industrial espionage, spies, and high finance: The Joseph Finder thrillers.

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