( Trump said it was OK for journalists to die in Russia.) Businessmen, politicians and others opposed to Putin’s dictatorship have also been assassinated. Hundreds of journalists have been killed during Putin’s reign. Americans are lucky that their government still holds Trump back from killing his critics - something that Putin’s government does not do. Remember that Trump is a big fan of Putin. The details do justice to the old claim that Russia is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” They also show that Russian is run by thugs who will lie, torture and murder anyone standing in the way of their pillaging of businesses, government assets, and pretty much anyone they feel like exploiting. The second half tells a gripping, surreal and tragic story of how Browder and his team were punished for crossing lines laid down by Vladimir Putin, his cronies, and the corrupt officials in his government.

Those early stories form the first half of the book. In other cases, they exposed corruption and catalyzed reforms that improved company governance.

In many cases, he and his team got rich by buying shares in companies that were not as badly managed as others assumed. The author is Bill Browder, an American-born, British-based investment banker who got rich investing in the chaos of 1990s Eastern Europe and Russia. My review is short because the 2015 book reads more like a fast-paced thriller than the non-fiction catastrophe it documents. This is a very short review for a very good book.

Red notice bill browder review