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.
They were black, croissant-shaped and instantly recognizable
to my male brain. Still it took me a few seconds to
comprehend the pair of womenβs 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 β 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 wasnβt 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 couldnβt see the bed properly. I could see that there was
no one in it, no gently heaving and subsiding form, but I
couldnβt 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 βCan we talk?β β again.
The last text was from Phil, time- stamped 03:17: βWher r
u?β
Weβll come back to Phil soon enough. For now, I needed to
know what else was in my pockets. Credit card receipts, a
womanβs 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.
Nothing else.
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