The Silent Oligarch

The Silent Oligarch
Author: Christopher Morgan Jones
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0143122983

“A happy partner to the work of Deighton, Archer, and le Carré... carried on craftily understated prose that approaches cold poetry… a first-class novel." (Booklist, starred review) Racing between London and Moscow, Kazakhstan and the Caymans, The Silent Oligarch reveals a sinister unexplored world where the wealthy buy the justice they want—and the silence they need. The first novel by Chris Morgan Jones—after his eleven years of work at the world's largest business intelligence agency—The Silent Oligarch introduces Benjamin Webster, mercenary spy to the rich and powerful. Hired to destroy a Russian oil baron, Webster discovers that his target's weak spot is a diffident English lawyer who hides the money generated from his master's vast criminal empire. Soon Webster's questions cause the lawyer's fragile world to crumble, forcing them both into a desperate race around the world to escape the oligarch's vengeance. Christopher Morgan Jones's newest book, The Searcher, will be published by Penguin Press on March 22nd, 2016.

An Agent of Deceit: A Ben Webster Novel 1

An Agent of Deceit: A Ben Webster Novel 1
Author: Chris Morgan Jones
Publisher: Mantle
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1743038488

"The best debut spy adventure I've read in a long time" The Times "Morgan Jones does invite comparison with Le Carré ... mesmerizing stuff" Guardian A tycoon with a deadly secret. A spy dying to find it. Ten years ago, journalist Ben Webster had his investigation into a corrupt Russian business in Kazakhstan crushed, the cost of his scrutiny a terrible tragedy... Now employed by a private London intelligence agency, Webster's interest is piqued when a client asks him to expose the dealings of shadowy Russian oligarch Konstantin Malin. Before long, Webster finds himself fixated by Malin and by his front man Richard Lock. But how far is he willing to risk the wellbeing of his family? And that of Lock himself? Against a background of Moscow, London, and Berlin, a journey of impossible decisions begins...

The Oligarchs’ Grip

The Oligarchs’ Grip
Author: David Lingelbach
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2023-11-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3111029328

The first ever guide to oligarchs as a global and historical phenomenon. Today, more than twenty oligarchs serve as heads of state or government in countries such as Russia, South Africa, Lebanon, and El Salvador. Many have a net worth in excess of $1 billion, and they all – whether directly or indirectly – impact our daily lives. Who are they and how have they dominated our world? What lessons can we learn from them, and what might the future hold? In The Oligarchs’ Grip: Fusing Wealth and Power, entrepreneurship professor David Lingelbach and oligarch researcher Valentina Rodríguez Guerra draw upon more than 25 years of research (including conversations with Vladimir Putin and other oligarchs), 16 case studies, and dozens of historical examples to develop the first-ever model revealing the strategies oligarchs employ to fuse wealth and power, and transition between the two. This model gives insight into how oligarchs use multiple control mechanisms to exploit an increasingly uncertain world. The Oligarchs’ Grip is a fascinating read for economists, political scientists, business academics, policymakers, businesspeople and anyone interested in oligarchs and the wealth and power they wield on the politico-economic scene today.

The Oligarchs

The Oligarchs
Author: Claes Ericson
Publisher: Stockholm Text
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2012-03-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9187173085

The Oligarchs is the dramatic but serious story about how a small group of young entrepreneurs could become some of the world’s richest men and get control of the president of a fallen super-power in the process.

Once Upon a Time in Russia

Once Upon a Time in Russia
Author: Ben Mezrich
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2015-05-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0434023418

A gripping and shocking insight into the lives of Russiaâe(tm)s most famous oligarchs from New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House. Once Upon a Time in Russia is the untold true story of the larger-than-life billionaire oligarchs who surfed the waves of privatization to reap riches after the fall of the Soviet regime: âeoeGodfather of the Kremlinâe Boris Berezovsky, a former mathematician whose first entrepreneurial venture was running an automobile reselling business, and Roman Abramovich, his dashing young protégé who built a multi-billion-dollar empire of oil and aluminium. Locked in a complex, uniquely Russian partnership, Berezovsky and Abramovich battled their way through the âeoeWild Eastâe of Russia with Berezovsky acting as the younger manâe(tm)s krysha- literally, his roof, his protector. Written with the heart-stopping pace of a thriller -but even more compelling because it is true - this story of amassing obscene wealth and power depicts a rarefied world seldom seen up close. Under Berezovskyâe(tm)s krysha, Abramovich built one of Russiaâe(tm)s largest oil companies from the ground up and in exchange made cash deliveries - including 491 million dollars in just one year. But their relationship frayed when Berezovsky attacked President Vladimir Putin in the media - and had to flee to the UK. Abramovich continued to prosper. Dead bodies trailed Berezovskyâe(tm)s footsteps, and threats followed him to London, where an associate of his died painfully and famously of Polonium poisoning. Then Berezovsky himself was later found dead, declared a suicide. Exclusively sourced, capturing a momentous period in recent world history, Once Upon a Time in Russia is at once personal and political, offering an unprecedented look into the wealth, corruption, and power behind what Graydon Carter called âe~the story of our ageâe(tm).

Putin and the Oligarch

Putin and the Oligarch
Author: Richard Sakwa
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2014-02-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0857723413

The arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the Yukos oil company, on 25 October 2003, was a key turning point in modern Russian history. At that time Khodorkovsky was one of the world's richest and most powerful men, while Yukos had been transformed into a vast and lucrative oil company that was set to go global. On all counts, this looked like a success story, but it was precisely at this moment that the Russian authorities struck. After two controversial trials, attracting widespread international condemnation, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to fourteen years in jail. In this book, Richard Sakwa examines the rise and fall of Yukos, and the development of the Russian oil industry more generally. Sakwa analyses Russia's emergence as an energy superpower, and considers the question of the 'natural resource curse' and the use of energy rents to bolster Russia as a great power and to maintain the autonomy of the regime. Crucially this book also examines the relationship between Putin's state and big business during Russia's traumatic shift from the Soviet planned economy to the market system.It is a detailed analysis of one of the most dramatic confrontations between economic and political power in our era, full of human drama and moral dilemmas. It is also a study of political economy, with the market and state coming into confrontation. Above all, the 'Yukos affair' continues to shape contemporary Russian politics, with a weakened judiciary and insecure property rights. It traces the struggles of the Putin era as two visions of society came into conflict. The attack on Khodorkovsky had - and continues to have - far-reaching political and economic consequences but it also raises fundamental questions about the quality of freedom in Putin's Russia as well as in the world at large.

The Jackal's Share

The Jackal's Share
Author: Chris Morgan Jones
Publisher: Penguin Books
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2014-01-28
Genre: Art dealers
ISBN: 0143124455

Previously published in hardcover: New York: Penguin Press, 2013.

The Searcher

The Searcher
Author: Christopher Morgan Jones
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2017-03-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0143110063

An unlikely hero dives into the chaos and madness of Russia and Georgia’s deadly covert conflict, in this rapid-fire tale of corporate espionage gone awry The acclaimed author of The Silent Oligarch and The Jackal’s Share, Christopher Morgan Jones returns to a murky world where corporate spies and government agents battle far from the public eye. Focusing on Georgia, a mountainous republic dominated and threatened by its neighbor Russia, Morgan Jones carries readers deep into an ancient land of chilling compromises and foolhardy valor. Morgan Jones’s novels center on a unique London corporate espionage firm, spearheaded by Ike Hammer and Ben Webster, which follows criminal money anywhere it leads: be it Moscow or Dubai, Monaco or Kazakhstan, a bureaucrat’s pockets or a politician’s bank account. While Webster was the star of the earlier novels—investigating Russian businessmen and KGB operatives in The Silent Oligarch and Persian billionaires and Tehran terrorists in The Jackal’s Share—in The Searcher the focus shifts provocatively to Hammer, making this a perfect starting point for old fans and new readers alike. Journeying to Georgia for the funeral of a friend, a journalist who inexplicably commits suicide after publishing the exposé of a lifetime, Webster mysteriously disappears. As the country rumbles ominously with civil strife and Russian aggression, Hammer rushes to Tbilisi to track down his missing friend. There he is forced to confront the country’s tragic chaos: civilians bombed either by cruel Russian spies or by deceitful Georgian soldiers; violent riots instigated by amoral oligarchs or government saboteurs; and double and even triple agents who are playing all sides against each other at once. Threatened by enemies he cannot name and “friends” he cannot trust, Hammer hurries north—into the lawless mountains bordering Russia itself—to discover the true fate of his friend and Georgia’s future.