One of the biggest of Big Pharma is Pfluger Klaxon. Global, highly profitiable. Sam Keller doesn't really have one of the more glamorous jobs at Klaxon. He's an auditor, a CPA/MBA in his late 20's; on the lookout for anyone, inside or outside, who looks to profit at Klaxon's expense. He's headed for Hong Kong with Charlie Hatcher, a middle manager with a reputation as a partier on Klaxon's nickel. Corporate security asks Sam to keep an eye on Charlie during their 2 day layover in Dubai. Nanette Weaver, the head cop at Klaxon, tells Sam to just keep an eye on him by keeping the company cell phone on so she can get updates at a moment's notice.
Charlie's rep is accurate. After some seemingly innocent wandering around Dubai clubs and hotels, he takes Sam to the York Club, a front for prostitution. Sam thinks Charlie is being well taken care of and shuts off the phone for a while. Minutes later, Charlie has had his abdomen opened up with an automatic pistol. Lt. Assad, a Dubai detective, draws the case and starts the investigation. Sam calls Nanette to tell her what happened who then sets her travel for Dubai. She tells Sam to search the body for the Klaxon Blackberry, but the only thing Sam finds is an address book with a few notes in some sort of Charlie-speak shorthand.
A mysterious 'Minister' contacts Detective Anwar Sharaf, an unlikely sort, unassuming, portly, middle aged, sort of ugly, speaks 5 languages and is reading Crime and Punishment in its original Russian. The sort of cop people underestimate and the worst kind of cop in a corrupt district; an honest cop. Sharaf checks out what happened and Assad ain't happy. Even Dubai cops are protective of their cases.
Still jet lagged after the initial interview, Sam is dragged from his hotel room and arrested. Sharaf believes Sam is being set up and bluffs his way through booking and takes Sam to the best option for a safe house - his house. Madame Sharaf ain't happy either, but their young 20s-ish daughter, Laleh, in mid-rebellion mode, actually talks with the strange westerner, much to mom's chagrin. It's bad enough Laleh doesn't always cover her hair, but to actually sit on the same couch with a westerner is downright scandalous.
Sharaf moves Sam from safe house to safe house over the next couple days while he and Sam form a wary and uneasy alliance to track data that links Nanette to Assad to the local US Counsel office, Russian and Iranian mafia, dozens of shopping malls, a battered women's shelter and lifelong friends of Sharaf "who dove the deepest waters with me." That's code for men he can trust (used to pearl dive and participate in a little smuggling as teenagers), because part of his work for the "Minister" is into dirty cops and the political peril they bring to men in power.
Jack the Librarian works at, well . . . , the local public library. We have the same tastes in authors and I'm trying to get him to contribute to MRB. Having just been in Dubai, I saw this title on the 'We Recommend" rack, sitting on Jack's shelf. I asked Jack what he knew about Fesperman. Said he as an award winning novelist, former journalist in multiple war zones and, most importantly, a staple on his must-read author list, aka in his 'power rotation' as we say here at MRB. Good enough for me. Checked it out and polished it off in less than a week, no problem. Characters you care about, interesting clash of cultures between Sam and family Sharaf, and very well plotted. Not ready for my power rotation just yet, but neither was Hunter or Box or Pelecanos or Stella after one read.
Stay tuned. MRB just may have struck a new vein of gold in vast mine of thriller writers.
East Coast Don
I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that Jack the Librarian joins MRB. I'm very interested in what the best read men have on their shelves. In a profession that is dominated by females, this librarian loves MRB!
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