Long Way Down

In Sears’s uneven third thriller featuring disgraced trader Jason Stafford (after 2013’s Mortals Bonds), investment banker Virgil Becker wants Stafford to investigate Philip Haley, CEO of a hot biotechnology client, to find out if he traded illegally. Becker worries that a scandal involving his client could be “dangerously expensive” to his firm. Haley protests his innocence, claiming that he’s being set up. But if so, by whom, and why? The stakes rise dramatically after the murder of Haley’s estranged wife, Selena, and Haley becomes the chief suspect. Sears is at his best explaining financial wrongdoing, and Stafford is a fine and fully rounded protagonist, but most of the supporting characters come across as caricatures, particularly the überprivileged Selena and a couple of billionaire CEOs. Despite its graceful prose, the book feels both overblown and undercooked, though many readers will enjoy the voyeuristic glimpses of the lifestyles of the rich and infamous. A[em]gent: Judith Weber, Sobol Weber Associates. (Feb.) [/em]