The hero of Philip Jolowicz's astonishing debut thriller is an everyman who believes he has everything but soon finds himself inexplicably plunged into a world of unspeakable moral corruption. A world where, for its victims, death is most likely the preferred option. In his office off Wall Street, Fin Border surveys his future with confidence. He's a young attorney bound for partnership in a British law firm set to merge with its immensely powerful American cousin in Rockefeller Center. His client list is the envy of his colleagues, his already burgeoning bank account is about to swell. And he truly believes he has consigned to the past the shame and disillusion surrounding the death of his once-revered father, a founding partner of the firm. But an invitation from JJ Carlson, Fin's client and best friend and one of Wall Street's most mercurial investment bankers, proves just how fragile Fin's existence really is. After five shocking minutes, Fin is staring at a scene of carnage on the FDR Drive, as well as the wreckage of his own life and career in New York. Fin's clients are abruptly torn from him, his money is siphoned and replaced by crippling debt, and the prospect of crushing litigation and a criminal record loom large. Fin's friendships and connections count for nothing. Only Carol Amen, senior in-house counsel with Jefferson Trust -- JJ's former employer -- seems to offer any chance of survival, professional or emotional. She has a deal for him, a salve for his pride and something that will get him out of the United States for a while. But Fin has been booked on a flight to the last place on earth he wants to visit. A crackling, character-driven business thriller, masterfully spun by a true-life legal titan of global finance, Walls of Silence follows a fast-rising lawyer through a treacherous international maze of preying power brokers and deadly conspiracies. In this first novel by former attorney Jolowicz, J.J. Carlson drives his million-dollar McLaren F1 over an embankment and onto the FDR Drive, killing himself and 15 others. Attorney Finley Border, Carlson's friend and witness to the crash, finds that his life has been turned upside down. He is listed as the McLaren owner, making him liable for all the damages plus the payments on the car. Then the law firm he represents removes his client base, and he is hounded by the press and relatives of the victims in the accident. Fin is offered the chance to be legal counsel in a buyout of a company in Bombay, but this is the last place he wants to go, as his father committed suicide there several years before. He is given no choice, however, and the action takes off as he and Carol Amen, his new girlfriend and fellow attorney, arrive in India to find that things are no better there than in New York. The threads of the complex plot take awhile to come together, which dampens some of the urgency of the action, but pace and story ultimately carry the reader to a satisfying end. For most fiction collections where legal and financial thrillers are popular. Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Hts. University Hts. P.L., OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Fin Border is on the partner track at the New York offices of a small but prestigious British law firm. Then he witnesses a gruesome accident on the FDR, and a series of events unfolds that seems to leave this once-powerful lawyer all but defenseless. First, visibly shaken after the accident, Fin is pulled from handling a major deal. Then the rest of his client files are reassigned to less-competent associates. Even the senior partner, who had been Fin's father's best friend, seems not to trust Fin anymore. In what should be a reprieve from his troubles, Fin is assigned to coordinate a small acquisition in India. Trouble is, India is where his father died, and the mystery involving his demise fills Fin with dread. Can he face his father's past? Perhaps with the help of his only apparent ally, client and lover Carol Amen, in tow, Fin finally will confront his demons and maybe even solve the mystery behind his own undoing. A strong first outing from a European financial industry guru. Mary Frances Wilkens Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Before turning his talents to writing, Philip Jolowicz was an attorney who held one of the top legal posts in the European financial industry. A seventeen-year veteran of the global financial market, he has lived and worked in New York, Hong Kong, and London, and traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the Far East. He now resides in England and is currently working on his second novel. Chapter One I was a morning person. So when JJ Carlson rang me at 6:00 A.M. that Monday, he caught me on my second cup of black coffee and the last page of the Wall Street Journal. He had something to show me, he said. Something neat. No clues. I was just to get myself to the corner of East 80th and First. I knew it was going to be speci