WALLS OF SILENCE

This engrossing, labyrinthine debut legal thriller by a British attorney with a background in international finance is at times annoyingly murky, but the tension level is high. Five years an expatriate in the New York offices of a London-based law firm, Fin Border—the son of an original partner who died in Bombay under highly questionable circumstances—is caught in a web of intrigue when one of his clients, an influential banker, commits suicide by driving a million-dollar custom automobile over a parapet and plummeting down to Manhattan's FDR Drive. To avoid scandal, Fin is taken off the momentous merger of his firm with a top competitor and sent to Bombay, accompanied by his girlfriend—the legal counsel for another important banking client—to handle the acquisition of a nondescript Indian corporation. After an old crony of his father tries to warn him that he may be in jeopardy, Fin finds this kindly ally brutally murdered, the only clues a slim book of Rudyard Kipling stories and a letter to a young paralegal that has scores of numbers scrawled across its back. In Bombay, Fin is drugged, taken to a brothel and then to the site of his father's enigmatic death, where an attempt is made to assassinate him; his mother pays the ultimate price. International white slavery and high finance lead back to old school ties at Oxford and the schemes of a secret cabal of four undergraduates. Although the disjointed narrative may frustrate the reader trying to sort out the myriad Gordian plot twists, the action culminates in a heart-stopping finale. Readers who have the patience to deal with a complex plot will find that this has all the diabolic undercurrents of a first-class chiller. 5-city author tour. (June)