Englischsprachige Literatur

Willett Sabin

The Betrayal

Arrow Books/Random House, London 1998

Galbraith3

Sabin Willett, born and educated in Britain, went to Harvard Law School and has been working as a lawyer in Boston. This is his second novel, the first being „The Deal“.
The unwilling heroine of this thriller is Luisa Shidler, mid-thirties, with a law degree and a top job at the Office of the US Trade Representative. She lives separated from her estranged husband and looks after her 12-year-old daughter Isabel. She also works for her former mentor Royall Stillwell, presently running as Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican Party.
When Luisa comes across incriminating papers with her forged signature, documenting 50 million Dollars hidden away in some bank account in Switzerland, her whole world shatters to pieces. She hurriedly copies the documents and sends one copy to her long time friend Henry MacPherson, editor of the „Washington Herald“. Her daughter is kidnapped, she is under house arrest with shackles.
The kidnappers contact her, telling her to plead guilty of fraud, otherwise her daughter would die. So it is  Mac (MacPherson) who follows the paper trail to Geneva and Paris; people he comes in contact with, die all around him. When her daughter manages to escape, her mother arranges a meeting point and also gets away. With the help of very unlikely people Luisa circles closer and closer to the dangerous truth behind it all.
The plot develops logically and picks up speed dramatically, but Willett still takes his time, describing people, their motives, the circumstances in a very intense way, so the reader is in the middle of it all. Of course, there is an overdramatic showdown in the end. It is a really fascinating read!