Clawback

In Cooper’s engaging if flawed financial thriller, Silas Cade, a former black ops soldier now working as a consultant, seeks “clawback” (“the mandatory return of compensation paid on a deal that later goes bad”) from shady investment managers, initially extracting $10 million on behalf of Tom Marlett, a hedge fund manager. After Marlett is murdered, another Wall Street tycoon, Quint Ganderson, hires Cade to look into the suspicious deaths of several money-losing money managers. A financial blogger, Clara Dawson, becomes enmeshed in the case, which turns into a frenetic search for the people and the motive behind the murders. A disgruntled investor seeking revenge? A fringe group wanting to destroy Wall Street? Or another financial player hungry for profit? The pseudonymous Cooper (“a former financial executive” who’s written a thriller under another name) clearly knows the investment world, but it’s hard to sympathize with the victims and even harder to stay engaged when the motive and the suspects are so opaque. Agent: Heide Lange, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Mar.)