The following is a summary of my speaking notes to the Ontario Bar Association Community Book Club which featured my book in its quarterly book club session on September 27th, 2024.
“It has been a very long road to get to this point. Death Fund is the first in a series of three books that I have written. I first started writing these books about twenty years ago. I would write them when I had time, which tended to be while I was travelling for work or on holidays. I wrote the first drafts in long-hand, in notebooks and enlisted the help of any passing victim who could actually read my writing to type them.
After writing the books, I began the very painful process of getting an agent and a publisher, which could almost be the plot of an Alex Greene novel itself. However, it has proven to me that if you don’t take a few bumps along the way, it hasn’t been worth doing,
I love being a lawyer and have nothing but respect for my colleagues and my clients but there is a lot to work with there. I often find myself shaking my head at real life situations and thinking – you really can’t make that shit up. Its inspiring!
I also got help with the book from a former colleague, Mike Cnudde who assisted with Alex’s action scenes including hand to hand combat and the use of weaponry. Mike has also made comments on all of my books over the years and has been invaluable to me. Mike has always encouraged me during what was an otherwise intimidating process to write about what I am familiar. Perhaps even more challenging, he also encouraged me write in a voice that is definitely not a professional one but somehow seems to come naturally to me!
Death Fund and sequels, Stashed Cash, Easy Money and Crypto Crooks features Alex Greene, a securities lawyer turned investigator, who lives in the exclusive Marais area of Paris and has holiday homes in the south of France and the Caribbean.
Alex left a practice with a large Paris-based firm to go in house with one of her clients, Basel Re a large reinsurance company. She is called upon to investigate large corporate and public market scams with a view to avoiding payouts on insurance policies. The books involve do not involve insurance scams – they involve securities scams and the professionals, lawyers and accountants and investment bankers who paper them.
Alex hangs out with a hired killer and a former French spy and does whatever needs to be done to save her client money applying her own sense of justice.
Alex is not afraid to bend the law herself to get the job done and makes enemies easily. She is not beacon of justice and fairness – just another “suit” making a buck. I’ve had a lot of push back on Alex’s persona and a lot of people has said that they don’t like her personality.
Alex’s personality is similar to many successful women that I have known who have tightly hones moral codes with questionable people skills. They’re not “nice” and certainly not a team players unless it’s their her team. Stina is the archetypical ice queen, a person who emotionless, distant or unfeeling and hostile and hard to get close to.
I have been asked to read from my book and I picked a passage from Chapter 41 of Death Fund that I think shows the emotional toil that being a lawyer takes as well as Alex’s take no prisoners approach her job.
“This passage feature Nick Martin who is one of the main antagonists in Death Fund who does everything he can to save a billion IPO for his crooked Russian clients only to sink deeper and deeper in trouble. In this scene Alex wants to talk to him about his role in a series of deaths related to an investment fund gone very wrong. Alex is waiting for Nick with her security – Max Pound.
It wasn’t until 6:30 p.m. that Nick finally looked outside his office door. The floor was deserted; Kristen and the other assistants had long gone home. Karla Murphy had left him an urgent message to come down to her office. It was the first time that he’d been back on the thirtieth floor since his move upstairs, and the empty offices freaked him out. His colleagues were either dead or gone.
Nick knocked lightly on Karla’s door and poked his head in. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Come in and close the door,” Karla said. “What the hell happened with Stefan? I heard it got ugly. You okay?”
“I’ll live, thanks,” Nick replied warily, not sure where she was going with this. He didn’t trust her.
Karla eyed him carefully. “What’s the connection between Stefan’s firing and the SEC investigation?”
Who the fuck told her about the SEC investigation?
“Best to speak to Mihkel about that.”
“What’s going on, Nick?”
“Talk to Mihkel,” Nick said evenly. Conniving bitch.
“Mihkel isn’t saying. I already spoke to him.”
“Then you have your answer, don’t you?” Nick walked out of her office.
Karla called after him, “Enjoy your fancy office on the thirty-third floor, Nick. I have a feeling you won’t be there long.”
Nick headed to his office with Karla’s words ringing in his ears. What does she know? Nick knew now that he could not survive the Prosperity fiasco at the firm, that it was just a matter of time till he was on the street. He just hoped he could hold on long enough to get his January bonus.
Nick grabbed his coat and headed for the parking garage. He had arranged for another overnight with Jenna, and she was waiting for him at the Hyatt.
He felt himself harden just at the thought of rolling around with her on his king-sized bed.
They didn’t call hookers “professionals” for nothing. Nick smirked as he entered the empty elevator.
The elevator chimed as Nick stepped out into the deserted underground garage. As he turned the corner, Alex Greene emerged from behind a pillar.
“Nick, it’s all starting to go down. Work with me, and you won’t go to jail.”
A black Mercedes SUV pulled up beside them, and Alex’s bodyguard got out.
Nick looked at Alex. “I thought you were finished with the file.”
“Yes, that was before the shit hit the fan with the SEC. Now it’s cleanup time. Get in the car.”
When Nick hesitated, Alex grabbed his arm. “I said get in.”
Nick tried to shake off Alex’s grip, and when that failed, he shoved Alex. Alex lost her balance and fell against the Mercedes and onto the dirty concrete floor. Nick bolted toward his SUV.
Max easily caught up with Nick, and after a brief struggle, he put Nick into a chokehold and dragged him back to the Mercedes, where Alex was still dusting off her camel-colored Max Mara coat.
“Are you okay, boss?” Max asked, gripping Nick around his neck.
“I’m fine,” Alex said. “Let him go.”
“I won’t turn on the Russians. They’ll kill me,” Nick said.
Alex stared at Nick impassively. “You think I won’t?”
Then she stepped forward and gave Nick an uppercut jab under his chin, followed by a hard straight-line punch in the nose. The quick one-two combo wreaked devastation: Nick’s top and bottom teeth slammed together as Alex’s fist smashed into his nasal bone.
Nick staggered backward. Tears welled in his eyes and blood ran from his nose and mouth. “You bitch, you broke my nose!”
“You started it. Now get in the fucking car.”
November 26, 2024