Corruptly Procured/a Richard Michaelson Mystery - Hardcover

Bowen, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031210524X ISBN 13: 9780312105242

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1994

Synopsis

The Cold War may be over, but retired foreign service officer Richard Michaelson is finding Washington, D.C., anything but peaceful.
At a government reception in the Library of Congress, a sudden explosion lands Michaelson in the hospital and allows a German nationalist group to steal the library's Bible. Soon afterward, a top Washington law firm offers him a consulting job he doesn't want, but before he can decline gracefully, one of the firm's partner is crushed to death in a suspicious accident.
Through his government contacts and the help of aspiring politician Wendy Gardner, Michaelson discovers a disturbing connection between the law firm and the library theft - a discovery that causes a net of capital intrigue and infighting to tighten around him as he tries to avert an international catastrophe.
Fast-paced, witty, and expertly crafted, Corruptly Procured is Richard Michaelson's most challenging and entertaining case to date.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Retired State Department insider Richard Michaelson (Washington Deceased, Faithfully Executed), dusting himself off after a bombing at the Library of Congress leaves him scarred and a priceless Gutenberg Bible missing, wonders what Kulturkampf, the terrorists-of-the-month claiming responsibility for the bombing, have to do with the law firm of Stevenson, Hughes & Cross, where he's been offered a factitious job leaking State info just before senior partner Aaron Palmer gets killed. The connection seems to be Karla Schuller, a hieromaniac German diplomat lurking at both scenes--but, his investigation goaded by Congressional hopeful Wendy Gardner, Michaelson soon realizes that the Kulturkampfers are hopeless duffers who never could have choreographed the outrages they've claimed and predicted; the cunning actual motive is currency speculation on a scale so gigantic that the speculators are willing to imperil Euro-unification by some climactic act of sabotage only Michaelson can hope to prevent. Not as lighthearted as Michaelson's earlier outings; this time, Bowen's wit shows in the cunning of every plot and counterplot. It's enough to boggle your mind, though fortunately not Michaelson's. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

A reception at the Library of Congress ends with a bang when a group calling itself Kulturkampf detonates a bomb, steals a Gutenberg Bible and delivers it to the German embassy. Soon after, retired State department officer Richard Michaelson, who was injured in the blast, is approached by high-powered lawyer Kyle Stroud to find out exactly what Karla Schuler's job is at the embassy. Giving the puzzle an additional twist is a Treasury official's interest in what Stroud is up to. Michaelson's sense that these events are intertwined is enough to lure him back into the shadowy corridors of power that Bowen ( Act of Faith ) sketches so well. This time Michaelson's contacts give him a runaround--and maybe worse: soon after Richardson talks with a senior U.S. official, a lawyer in Stroud's firm is murdered. Meanwhile Kulturkampf, which is still on the loose, has set off a bomb in London. With some help from Wendy Gardner, a friend and state legislator, Michaelson gradually pieces together the fragments of a devious scheme while giving the reader a sophisticated and attention-commanding tour though a political landscape in which intrigue seems less the exception than the rule.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 031210524X
• ISBN 13: 9780312105242
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 279