Grandson of America's top Communist, Bill Bowder set out to be the exact opposite, a capitalist. He eventually landed in the Stanford Business School and from there launch himself into the competitative work of hedge fund investing at almost the exact time that the Soviet Union fell apart.
By the mid 1990s he had amassed a huge fortune by investing in Russia where he tangled with corrupt oligarchs. As long as his fight worked for Valdimir Putin, he was fine, but when it didn't, Putin expelled him from Russia in 2005.
Two years later, Browder's offices were raided as were those of his lawyer which led to the theft of $230 million of taxes that his fund’s companies had paid to the Russian government. Sergei Magnitsky, Bowder's attonery, uncoverd the theft and testified against the men who perpetrated it. He was arrested, totured, and eventually clubbed to death.
Red Notice is part of Browder's quest for justice, having emerged from his Russian experience a changed man.
Extremely well written, Red Notice, mesmerized me. The blatant corruption of government, the moral force of Magnitsky, the complex world of finance, all served to propel the story forward, but it was Browder's evolution as a man that solidified this book on my top 50 must read list.
