Nicholas Thorneycroft wakes up in Luxembourg unable to
remember the previous night. He's pretty sure he had female
company, but why doesn't he know who she was?
THE CANDIDATE is an intelligent thriller novella which
catches your attention from the start. Nicholas cannot find
his own office key card. As he occasionally handles
sensitive documents, he'd rather know the reason. He begins
to suspect that he was drugged by the unknown woman.
Luxembourg is a small country, handling high finance and
European projects from its French-speaking low tax base.
The location is thoroughly well described, from the one
English pub selling Continental beers to the icy roads on
the hill leading down to the Petrusse River and the
floodlit quaint castle. Nick started as a sports writer and
now headhunts for a major firm, making him a rounded
character. His boss asks him to help employ a female
Russian banker, who'll be paid several times Nick's own
salary. Nick reckons that this glamorous candidate
Yekaterina may be his visitor, and he learns that a Russian
firm Xanant is considering taking over his own firm. While
there doesn't seem to be a connection, he decides that some
background research into the lady candidate is needed.
The characters in this book are sharply written and
believable. Nick's past girlfriend turns up in town when
he's preoccupied; she seems emotionally unstable. Thugs
smash down his apartment door, and Nick's own bosses would
rather believe the prospect of big bonuses than take Nick's
word that something sinister is in progress. Banking, Daniel
Pembrey is telling us, is multinational, occasionally
corrupt and corrupting.
Daniel Pembrey is writing about places and jobs where he
has worked, just as he did in full-length novel "The Woman
Who Stopped Traffic." With his flair for realism and insider
knowledge of high finance, he doesn't just push the door
open for his readers, he throws it wide to reveal the good,
the bad and the dangerous. THE CANDIDATE is a fine lead-in
to his work.
Nick Thorneycroft is a British headhunter working in
Luxembourg. His company asks him to recruit a high-flying
executive for the company's Russian business. The best
candidate turns out to be smart, beautiful... and
mysterious. Soon the effects of Russia's political upheaval,
and the arrival of an ex-girlfriend who won't leave him
alone, make Nick's Luxembourg life increasingly perilous;
worlds collide in this gripping, atmospheric tale.
Excerpt
They were black, croissant-shaped and instantly recognizable
to my male brain. Still it took me a few seconds to
comprehend the pair of women’s underwear on the floor of my
dim Luxembourg apartment. Fumes of some spirit, vodka
possibly, clouded my vision.
I crouched down and picked them up, fumbling the material. A
drill pierced my skull. My fingers were shaky and I felt
sweat at the back of my neck – even though it was the depths
of winter. Jesus. Whose were they? I scanned the rest of my
bedroom for clues. The parquet floor and high ceiling swam
murkily; it was too dim to tell with the shutters closed and
my fierce hangover wasn’t helping with the recognition. Yet
all the other clothes strewn around looked to be my own.
There were my Hugo Boss black trousers, my metallic grey
work shirt, belt and leather slips-ons. Somewhere here too,
hopefully, was my old Rolex Perpetual.
I couldn’t see the bed properly. I could see that there was
no one in it, no gently heaving and subsiding form, but I
couldn’t tell whether there was a second depression on the
mattress from someone having slept there.
In my trouser pocket I found my phone, the battery almost
dead, Claire asking after midnight ‘Can we talk?’ – again.
The last text was from Phil, time- stamped 03:17: ‘Wher r
u?’
We’ll come back to Phil soon enough. For now, I needed to
know what else was in my pockets. Credit card receipts, a
woman’s phone number? There was a receipt from the Ducal
Casino for a bottle of Lanson champagne and two club
sandwiches, 02:44, weighing in at 185 euros.
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