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Several years ago I made the acquaintance of a winsome young lady with a mysterious job. She worked for a company with a nondescript name that occupied modest office space in an almost invisible office building along a busy but decaying office corridor. I'd be willing to bet my house and all that is underneath and above it that you went past at least one building like it on your way to or from your work today. The business of the business was...moving money. This wasn't one of these places where guys duckwalked in through one door, eyes fixed on a nondescript point on the opposite wall, carrying bags that go jinglejangle when they bang against the hog on their hip, and walked out through another door. No no. This office, and all its little workerbees, moved money through cyberspace. 24/7/365 there were people sitting in front of computer screens entering data and checking numbers and taking names and kicking butt. According to my friend, they were dealing with so much money that errors were tolerated as long as they were within a certain tolerance. It occurred to me on one occasion, watching all of this happen in an eerie quiet broken only by an occasional cough and the rapid, soft, taptaptap of fingers on a keyboard, that someone who knew what they were doing could really put their finger in the soup and come out with a large enough meatball to (1) gum up the works and (2) be set for life, if they were smart, patient and low key about it. I thought about that quite a bit, a bit more than I would like to admit.
I, accordingly, went for THE MILLIONAIRES by Brad Meltzer as if it were a road map to my most secret temptations. Well, almost; I mean THE MILLIONAIRES does not even mention Emily Robinson of the Dixie Chicks. However, what THE MILLIONAIRES does involve is the following ethical question: What would you do if you had the chance to take three million dollars that really didn't belong to anybody?
If you're two brothers named Oliver and Charlie Caruso you go for it. They work for a bank that is so exclusive that you don't get an account, let alone a toaster or a radio, if you don't deposit a minimum of two million dollars. When they discover three million dollars in an abandoned account, they really don't think twice about it. The money is going to be turned over to the state, for crying out loud, if they don't take it. They can get themselves and their poor mother out of debt and reinvent their lives. All it will take is a few keystrokes, the creation of a few dummy corporations, a friendly banker who knows how to keep a secret on a quiet island, and they're in the money. It's so easy.
Well, actually, it's not. They pull off the transfer, go home, and sleep the excited and restless sleep of the newly rich. The next morning the bank is crawling with Secret Service agents, a friend of theirs is murdered, and their world is crashing down on them. When they run, they're marked anytime they use a credit card or make a cell phone call. So where do they run? And how did everyone find out? And since when does the Secret Service run around trying to kill people? The brothers get the bright idea that Martin Duckworth --- the guy who opened up the original account to begin with --- might have something to do with all of this. They trace him to Orlando, Florida, which, after the world becomes aware of THE MILLIONAIRES, will be known for something besides Disney World. And yes, the Brothers Caruso do get to see Disney World as well as a side of it few people really get to explore.
Brad Meltzer is rapidly becoming the literary king of rock 'n' roll. Those readers who jumped on board with last year's THE FIRST COUNSEL will be back for this one sight unseen and will be more than amply rewarded. Meltzer states in his introduction that with THE MILLIONAIRES he was stepping into a world about which he knew absolutely nothing. Fuggedaboutit. Meltzer leads us around the world of banking and finance and cyberspace banking like a klaxon with a 20 year pin. He never lets his explanations get in the way of the story, however. You could read this all night and never once bop yourself on the nose with it. Meltzer, from his first novel, has been quietly but firmly shouldering his way to the front of the suspense pack; on the strength of THE MILLIONAIRES he may just be the future one to beat.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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