Clean Hands

Corporate lawyer Elizabeth Carlyle is under pressure. Her prestigious New York law firm is working on a high-stakes case, defending a prominent bank that's been accused of fraud. When Elizabeth gets the news that one of her junior associates has lost his phone - and the secret documents that were on it - she needs help. Badly. Enter ex-CIA officer Valencia Walker, a high-priced fixer who gets called in when wealthy corporations, people and governments need their problems solved discreetly. But things get complicated when the missing phone is retrieved: somebody has already copied the documents, and now they're blackmailing the firm. The situation gets murkier still when stories about the documents start appearing in the press and a tragic suicide appears staged, hinting that darker forces may be churning below the surface. With billions of dollars on the line, Elizabeth and Valencia must outmanoeuvre their tormentors, all the while keeping their hands clean. In a world of private security, private diplomacy and private justice, a sharply-drawn cast of characters - including dirty lawyers, black-market traders and Russian criminals - take part in this breakneck tour through New York. Authentic, tense and impossible to put down, Clean Hands offers a vivid perspective on the connections between corporations, government and the underworld.

About the Author :
Patrick Hoffman is a writer and private investigator based in Brooklyn. His first novel, The White Van, was a finalist for the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and his books have been named Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of the Year.

Review :
Hoffman is a private investigator and his time on the shady side of the street informs every bit of this gripping financial thriller...[a] smart, fast-moving tale. Edge-of-the-seat stuff, with two memorable female leads. Exhilarating...with its crisp pace and superb timing, Clean Hands is a special treat The fun is in the details...It becomes increasingly clear that the whole thing is far more complicated, with much higher stakes, than most of the pawns in this grand chess game understand. Clean Hands is a terrific combination of noir mystery with financial thriller plus dirty-ops espionage, staking a claim to a highly compelling intersection of grit and glamour, with an unforgettable cast that's rich in both low lifes and the high life, and devious twists galore. Highly enjoyable. Clean Hands is an old-fashioned private investigator yarn - a terrific story - but skilfully brought up to date. Patrick Hoffman never slows the pace and always keeps the reader guessing. I admired the strong female characters, especially the P.I., Valencia Walker, a take-charge dame who's been around the block too many times to count. Everything you could want in a thriller - lightning pace, dead-on dialogue and a twisting, high-torque plot. But, most of all, this novel is smart and authentic, a welcome jolt at a time when so much fiction reads like it rolled off an assembly line. Subtle characterization, tricky narrative switchbacks . . . vivid, moody prose . . . closer to Denis Johnson than to Elmore Leonard Everything in his unpredictable fiction has the dissonant clink of alarming truth . . . The White Van, with its quick and scary turns, provides a hell of a ride; the action never stops - even after the final page