Red Notice, A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder

Bill Browder, a mild-mannered financier working in Russia, gets on the wrong side of the Putin government, and soon he and his plucky team are in a race for their lives in a virtually lawless country.

Sounds like the slick blurb for an international thriller, but Red Notice is a true, much darker story. The financial shenanigans, political corruption, dead of night escapes, secret police interrogations, and finally murder are not just plot elements, but tragically real.

How Bill Browder, who is surely one of the most obstinate men alive, goes from hedge fund manager to human rights activist and wrestles one of the most corrupt governments in the world is indeed an example that truth is stranger than fiction.

Entertaining but chilling.

WHAT OTHER REVIEWERS SAY

Bryan Burrough, coauthor of Barbarians at the Gate and author of Public Enemies and The Big Rich:   “Bowder’s true story is a heart-in-your-throat page-turner, and the only close-up look I know of what it’s like to take on Putin. It is also a moving account of a man who found his calling and ended up winning in the end.”

WHO WROTE IT

Bill Browder, founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005. Since 2009, when his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in prison after uncovering a $230 million fraud committed by Russian government officials, Browder has been leading a campaign to expose Russia’s endemic corruption and human rights abuses. Before founding Hermitage, Browder was a vice president at Salomon Brothers. He holds a BA in economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Stanford Business School.    

PS Soon to be a major motion picture starring Dwayne Johnson (!?) and another yet-to- be named star. Browder must be thrilled, if not somewhat bemused.