Alex Calder is a bond trader at the Bloomfield Weiss in London. An ex RAF fighter pilot Alex is a man who likes to take risks - he enjoys his job and is very successful at it. Out celebrating one evening with colleague Jennifer Tan they encounter Justin Carr-Jones, the head of the derivities desk, who is one of Bloomfield Weiss’s high achiever’s. When Justin is particularly sexually unpleasant to Jen, she decides to pursue a sexual harassment case - Jen had previously worked for Justin and had endured sexual harassment from him for sometime, she decides enough is enough. Alex tries to persuade her not to make the matter official, all too aware that with the high profits that Justine is generating Bloomfield Weiss will protect him. Although not surprised at the outcome of the internal investigation by Bloomfield Weiss, Alex is devastated when Jen commits suicide, and he quits Bloomfield Weiss.
He returns to his first love - flying. He invests in a flying school in Norfolk, and is happy in his life
although he still feels disquiet at Jen’s death and wonders if he should have done more to support her. When a year later an ex-colleague from Bloomfield Weiss turns up out of the blue his visit brings all Alex’s doubts to the surface, and when the colleague disappears while visiting Jean-Luc Martel, one of Bloomfield Weiss’s biggest client’s at his home in Wyoming, Alex can no longer sit back in Norfolk.
Alex makes contacts with ex-colleagues at Bloomfield Weiss but initially learns very little. Then he remembers a lawyer friend of Jen‘s, Sandy who is initially hostile to him. But gradually he begins to unravel the complex dealings that eventually lead to Jen’s death.
I have read and enjoyed all Michael Ridpath’s book. Although of a completely different era they have a feel about them of the early Alistair MacClean books -the main character is the quiet unassuming but strong hero, and the bad men are bad. A very fast paced satisfying thriller - one of those impossible to put down books.
Sean Barrett did justice to this excellent book.
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Lizzie Hayes