MAN IN THE MIDDLE

Morris's first thriller is a brisk, if at times predictable, story of international financial mayhem. The unlikely heroes are Oliver Dawson, an obdurate low-level attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission's Enforcement Division, and Peter Neil, a young man thrust into an atmosphere of greed and temptation at a hedge fund. After Peter's mother dies in a car accident, her former lover and family friend, attorney Jason Ayers, offers the unemployed Peter a job with one of his clients, a hedge fund called Stenman Partners. The company is an epicenter of corruption—reaping money from the drug trade, among other things—but Peter gets swept up in the fast money and glamour. Morris paints a detailed picture of currency trading and the movements of billions of dollars around the world, spelling out the dire consequences for barely solvent developing nations. There are consequences as well for the poor working saps who threaten to reveal Stenman Partners' unscrupulous activities: they end up dead, frustrating Oliver's investigation of the company. For Peter, the good times come to an end when the mysterious circumstances of his mother's death turn out to be linked to Stenman. Before she died, she left Peter documents that incriminated the hedge fund, and now top malefactors at Stenman are framing him for murder. Peter teams up with Oliver and Ayers's daughter, Kate, in a dangerous scheme to unveil the company's doings. Though Peter's rise and fall and resurrection are boilerplate, the fast-moving action and high-stakes financial intrigue should keep thriller fans entertained. (Mar.)