Blog Tour - The Silent Oligarch

I reviewed Chris Morgan Jones' debut novel, The Silent Oligarch, Saturday but today is my day for his blog book tour.  I wanted to share more about Chris himself.

Chris was born in Bromsgrove, a town in Worcestershire, England, and studied English Language and Literature at St. Catherine's College, Oxford. He worked about eleven years for Kroll, the world's largest investigations company, where he specialized in Russian projects and disputes. He has advised Middle Eastern governments, Russian oligarchs, New York banks, London hedge funds, and African mining companies.  He currently lives in London with his wife and children.

What made him uniquely qualified to write a novel about a Russian oligarch who uses a front man to help with a money laundering network of shell companies? 

"For most of my career I made a living hearing other people's stories and being trusted to keep them secret; I now find myself making up my own and hoping to find them an audience. I was a spy, or sorts - not a proper one, because I could everyone what I was, if not the details of what I did - but part detective, part spy, perhaps, working for the largest private intelligence business in the world.

We worked for companies, bankers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, governments, the odd celebrity, and because we tended to work for them when they had much to lose they would reveal more to us than they might to other advisers or even colleagues.  Each new project meant a new target and a new world, at its center a Ukrainian coal mine or an Albanian crime organization or a Middle Eastern bank, that I would get to occupy for a while, hoping to understand its particular character and dynamics.

In many of those worlds we would come across a distinctive breed of modern criminal: frontmen, or sorts, who hid money for others in their own name.  I was always fascinated by their predicament: how they ever found themselves in that position, what their lives had once been, what it might feel like to sell your identity to someone else.  I particular I wondered how they might react to their complicated fictions being unpicked and to the shame and ruin, or worse, the result." source: authors website.

You may read an extract from his book here (click here)

Chris' Tour Stops

Tuesday, January 17th: Jen’s Book Thoughts

Thursday, January 19th: Man of La Book

Friday, January 20th: My Two Blessings

Monday, January 30th: Mysteries and My Musings

Wednesday, February 1st: Life in Review

Wednesday, February 8th: Ted Lehmann’s Bluegrass, Books, and Brainstorms

Thursday, February 9th: Mrs. Q: Book Addict

Monday, February 13th: Walking With Nora

Tuesday, February 14th: The Year in Books

Wednesday, February 15th: Mary’s Cup of Tea

Thursday, February 16th: nomadreader

Here is a video of Chris discussing his book.