THE BANK OF FEAR

By David Ignatius

William Morrow & CO. (1994)

Reviewed 6/10/94 by Bob Thompson

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THE BANK OF FEAR is an interesting novel. It would be a lot more interesting if it were a true story, but I don't know if it even has any elements of reality in it.

Lina Alwan is the central character. She is an Iraqi expatriate living in London. She works for an "investments" firm operated by Nasir Hammoud, another Iraqi "expatriate". Hammoud is a very shadowy creature, controlling a multi-billion dollar empire. No one seems to know where his money came from, or where it goes.

Sam Hoffman is a kind of a private investigator / financial consultant, an American living in London. He is approached by Hammoud's Fillipino cook, who believes that Hammoud is responsible for the sexual assault and murder of his wife. Hoffman is reluctant to take the case, not being a Marlowe, Spade or Hammer type of detective, but he is intrigued by the lack of information available on Hammoud's business, which is within his field of interest.

Hoffman approaches Lina Alwan as the only potential "inside source" in Hammoud's organization. She doesn't really know anything, and is afraid to even look, but she accidentally taps into a secret computer file of Hammoud's just after Hoffman approached her. While there is nothing specifically bad about the file, it does cause her to question what is going on more closely. Unfortunately, Lina has been under surveillance by her superiors for some time, and her innocent contact with Hoffman is seen.

The bad guys, thinking that something is going on between Lina and Hoffman put her to the question. This is the beginning of a chain of events that include the assassination of "The Ruler" in Iraq, and it takes Lina to Iraq for interrogation, and to Switzerland for revenge.

The novel has some interesting insights into the Iraqi peoples and the politics of the entire Middle East. It gets into the Swiss and International banking systems, computer hacking and even CIA operations. The only trouble is, I don't know if any of it is based on reality except in the most general ways.

Not a great book, it is still quite readable, especially if you are interested in any of the above subjects. If you are reading it as a straight "murder mystery", the murders are merely incidental to the main story, and indeed, we never find out for certain if Hammoud is truly the murderer of the cook's wife.

I would be interested to see a review of this book by someone who is more familiar with the international banking system and computer hacking than I am. I'd like to know how accurate the author is on these subjects.

There are a lot of quite interesting secondary characters that seem to be stereotypically accurate, but I don't know if they are based upon any "real people".

Anyway, THE BANK OF FEAR would be a tremendous story if it were true, but as a novel it is moderately interesting and entertaining.
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