Fatal Exchange chronicles the story of Tess Gideon, a female Manhattan bike messenger with an appetite for the wild side, who becomes embroiled in a rogue nation's Byzantine scheme to destabilize the U.S. financial system.
From the sweltering streets of Seoul to the sex-and-drug-driven underbelly of Greenwich Village, attempts at silencing a leak in an international counterfeiting operation leave a trail of butchery that leads inevitably to Wall Street, and pit a counter-culture heroine against a ruthless state-sponsored assassination team that will stop at nothing to achieve its lethal ends.
As the body count climbs, Tess is assisted by Detective Ron Stanford, a NYPD homicide specialist tracking a brutal serial killer whose ritualistic cycle of murder and mutilation targeting bike messengers is escalating to fever pitch.
Tess’s battle to survive propels her into a deadly underworld where she must become judge and executioner, challenging her core beliefs about morality, justice and love. Characters include her musician boyfriend Nick, Gordon Samuels, a powerful commodities trader who will stop at nothing to join the ranks of the city’s billionaires, Saul Balinsky, a paranoid ex-Treasury Department currency expert, Duff, a former gang banger whose torso is stitched with bullet scars, and a cast of iconoclastic messengers living on the fringes of mainstream society.
My thoughts
Russell Blake’s debut novel certainly gives you a run for your money. It is a faced-paced, action –packed thriller with what seems like two stories in one. First, there is the counterfeiting story and then the one about Tess, the female bike messenger living in the city trying to make ends meet and get entangled in a conspiracy. Although quite graphic (and not for the faint of heart), I found the story to be intriguing and intense!
Disclosure: I received this book for review through bookrooster.com. I received no compensation for my thoughts.
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