Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice

When Bill Browder’s 2015 nonfiction book Red Notice begins, he is a naive investor; when it ends, he is a crusader for human rights. In between is a narrative of ambition, greed, corruption, violence, death, and, finally, retribution and justice. Red Notice chronicles the life of a financier and his quest to repair the terrible damage done to him and his business team by Russian operatives, and, most of all, to get justice for Sergei Magnitsky, who gives his life in order to protect others from the violence of a corrupt political regime.

The first seven chapters portray Browder’s youth and early career. His grandfather is a famous communist who runs for the American presidency in the 1930s; his father and brothers are noted mathematicians. Browder is a rebel who tweaks the noses of his family by becoming a capitalist investor. With a Stanford MBA in hand, he works at major investment banks, focusing on the emerging markets of Eastern Europe. He travels to Poland to try to save a bankrupt bus manufacturer; in the process, he suffers from communication difficulties, freezing hotel-room nights, greasy food, and the failure of the bus company itself.