Who put the nasties into dynasties?
Chris Hammer pretty much nails it in his latest page turning thriller, FULL CIRCLE.
“It’s about arithmetic not morality.” says one of the characters in this sprawling epic where maths trumps ethics in the great game of venture capital and hedge funds, the bull rings and bear pits of the market.
Cliffhangers normally end a novel, but Hammer begins FULL CIRCLE with one, with a sinister prologue set a dozen years before the contemporary narrative. It’s a circumstance shrouded in murder mystery cloak and dagger stuff, of whistle blowing and double cross, a perfect start to a book that roils with characters consumed by ambition, empire building and white-anting each other. People who see money as an end in itself, a measurement of achievement. Those that survive and thrive in the manipulation of money.
Undercover cop turned chauffeur, Travis Somerland, is employed as a driver for financial wizard, Felix Clapton. Felix presents a manicured lawn to the public but dwells in a jungle of capitalist predators, of which he is alpha. His latest quarry is the Murtrie family empire, a family with whom Travis has a troubled history.
History haunts Hammer’s narrative with several story strands expanding through the novel, strands that are inextricably linked like an immense charm bracelet as the chronology see-saws back and forth, hindsight hurlyburly colliding with credible coincidence.
The devious and the disreputable bankroll FULL CIRCLE with deceit and double dealing passing as collateral damage.
FULL CIRCLE isn’t just a detective thriller or police procedural, it’s a bona fide saga, a door-stopper blockbuster, a five hundred page leviathan of compulsive reading.
FULL CIRCLE by Chris Hammer is published by Summit Books.
