Absolute Risk

In his second thriller (after Final Target, 2010), Gore takes on global issues in a convoluted plot involving world financial markets and their impact on geopolitics. When plainspoken Fed chairman Milton Abrams enlists high-powered San Francisco PI Graham Gage to look into the suspicious death of an ex-FBI agent, Gage finds himself on the trail of former MIT mathematician Hani Ibraham, whose quantum theory of finance helped spawn the multitrillion-dollar Relative Growth hedge fund. His quest for Ibraham, who was deported years earlier on a bogus charge, takes him to Marseilles, but Gage remains in touch with his anthropologist wife, Faith, who is in China when an earthquake hits, prompting a revolt against officials who allowed the erection of substandard buildings. Gage, with impressive resources and talent at his fingertips, finds that all these threads connect and have vast implications. Gore stuffs a lot into his plot, including a presidential health crisis, but he manages it well, with a winning protagonist and a plausible premise that may leave readers worrying about—among other things—U.S. treasury bonds owned by China. --Michele Leber

“A brisk pace and an intriguing plot make the pages turn themselves.” (Richard North Patterson, bestselling author of Silent Witness )

“Masterful.... Sharp, smart writing and convincing economic detail put this in the front rank of genre fiction.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )